Enabling fast, stable and accurate peridynamic computations using multi-time-step integration

Peridynamics is a nonlocal extension of classical continuum mechanics that is well-suited for solving problems with discontinuities such as cracks. This paper extends the peridynamic formulation to decompose a problem domain into a number of smaller overlapping subdomains and to enable the use of different time steps in different subdomains. This approach allows regions of interest to be isolated and solved at a small time step for increased accuracy while the rest of the problem domain can be solved at a larger time step for greater computational efficiency. Performance of the proposed method in terms of stability, accuracy, and computational cost is examined and several numerical examples are presented to corroborate the findings.