A numerical analysis of stress intensity factors at bifurcated cracks

This paper is concerned with complex stress intensity factors at bifurcated cracks by using the boundary element method, which consists of the constant displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity element due to the author. To prove the efficiency of the suggested approach and provide more results of the stress intensity factors, analysis of an asymmetric branched crack bifurcated from a main crack is carried out. The present numerical results show that the numerical approach to the computation of stress intensity factors of complex plane crack problems is simple, yet very accurate.