Modeling of dynamic fracture based on the cracking particles method

The dynamic fragmentation of brittle materials using the cracking particles method (CPM) with obscuration zone is studied. The CPM is an effective meshfree method for arbitrary evolving cracks. The crack is modeled by piecewise straight crack segments and does not require any topological representation of the crack surface. To avoid artificial cracks observed in discrete continuum approaches, obscuration zones are used as suggested by Mott. The influence of the variation in material properties with different stochastic input parameters on the results is studied as well.