Fatigue crack growth analysis of an interfacial crack in heterogeneous materials using homogenized XIGA

In this work, the fatigue life of an interfacial cracked plate is evaluated in the presence of flaws by homogenized extended isogeometric analysis (XIGA). In XIGA, the crack faces are modeled by discontinuous Heaviside jump functions, whereas the singularity in the stress field at the crack tip is modeled by crack tip enrichment functions. Holes and inclusions are modeled by Heaviside function and distance function respectively. The discontinuities are modeled in a selected region near the major crack whereas the region away from the crack is modeled by an equivalent homogeneous material. The stress intensity factors (SIFs) for the interface cracks are numerically evaluated using the domain based interaction integral approach. Paris law of fatigue crack growth is employed for computing the fatigue life of an interfacial cracked plate. The results show that the defects/ discontinuities away from the main crack barely influence the fatigue life.