Modeling tensile crack propagation in concrete gravity dams via crack-path-field and strain injection techniques

•Crack propagation modeling in gravity dams is focused.•The novel crack-path-field and strain injection techniques are used.•Issues as reliability, computational cost and robustness are addressed.•The mesh influence is deeply discussed by using different finite element meshes.•A comprehensive summary of the utilized numerical techniques is presented.

This work investigates tensile crack propagation in concrete gravity dams by using some recently developed numerical techniques (crack-path field and strain injection techniques) [1], [2] and [3]. The work carefully addresses aspects related to mesh independence, robustness and computational cost, which are the main issues in fracture modeling. The novel technique consists of a procedure to insert, in the selected domain areas, specific strain fields for enhancing the performance of the underlying finite elements in modeling fracture. Representative numerical simulations of concrete dams show the accuracy and robustness of the methodology. The code used for the simulations is open-source and available at http://www.cimne.com/compdesmat/.