Modelling of cohesive crack growth in concrete structures with the extended finite element method

In this paper, the extended finite element method (XFEM) is used for a discrete crack simulation of concrete using an adaptive crack growth algorithm. Different criteria for predicting the direction of the extension of a cohesive crack are investigated in the context of the XFEM. The robustness of these criteria is analyzed with reference to three examples and the results are compared to experiments. Furthermore, the efficient application of the quadtree data structure for an iterative mesh refinement in combination with the XFEM is shown considerably to reduce the computational effort.