Volume is indexed by Thomson Reuters BCI (WoS). Crack growth is a complex phenomenon and difficult to model without assumed simplifications. In recent years, there has been an increasing realization that advanced computational methods such as the Finite Element Method, the Boundary Element Method and Mesh Free Methods can be used to simulate crack growth in complex structural parts. This special issue contains original papers written by active researchers in the field of computational fracture mechanics. The aim is to inform those in the fracture mechanics community who might not be at the forefront of computational research of the recent developments and techniques available and the wide range of applications for which solutions are now possible.

The book summarizes recent international research and experimental developments regarding fatigue crack growth investigations of rubber materials. It shows the progress in fundamental as well as advanced research of fracture investigation of rubber material under fatigue loading conditions, especially from the experimental point of view. However, some chapters will describe the progress in numerical modeling and physical description of fracture mechanics and cavitation phenomena in rubbers. Initiation and propagation of cracks in rubber materials are dominant phenomena which determine the lifetime of these soft rubber materials and, as a consequence, the lifetime of the corresponding final rubber parts in various fields of application. Recently, these phenomena became of great scientific interest due to the development of new experimental methods, concepts and models. Furthermore, crack phenomena have an extraordinary impact on rubber wear and abrasion of automotive tires; and understanding of crack initiation and growth in rubbers will help to support the growthing number of activities and worldwide efforts of reduction of tire wear losses and abrasion based emissions.

Fracture mechanics has established itself as an important discipline of growing interest to those working to assess the safety, reliability and service life of engineering structures and materials. In order to calculate the loading situation at cracks and defects, nowadays numerical techniques like finite element method (FEM) have become indispensable tools for a broad range of applications. The present monograph provides an introduction to the essential concepts of fracture mechanics, its main goal being to procure the special techniques for FEM analysis of crack problems, which have to date only been mastered by experts. All kinds of static, dynamic and fatigue fracture problems are treated in two- and three-dimensional elastic and plastic structural components. The usage of the various solution techniques is demonstrated by means of sample problems selected from practical engineering case studies. The primary target group includes graduate students, researchers in academia and engineers in practice.

Novel techniques for modeling 3D cracks and their evolution in solids are presented. Cracks are modeled in terms of signed distance functions (level sets). Stress, strain and displacement field are determined using the extended finite elements method (X-FEM). Non-linear constitutive behavior for the crack tip region are developed within this framework to account for non-linear effect in crack propagation. Applications for static or dynamics case are provided.

The primary result of the sponsored research is the development and application of the boundary element method for two- and three-dimensional fatigue crack growth analysis. The two-dimensional formulation developed previously (AFOSR Contract No. F49620-84-C-0042) was extended to investigate the crack tip behavior of long and short cracks under cyclic loading. The influence of residual plasticity on stress intensity factor was used to obtain an unambiguous estimate of the plastic zone size. It was demonstrated that the effect of the plastic wake on the stress intensity factor for crack opening (closure) and the effect of the residual stress on the retardation are identical manifestations of the same plasticity process. The boundary integral equations also provide insight to the mathematical equivalence of these two effects. Keywords: Fracture mechanics, Fatigue crack growth, Crack retardation, Crack closure, Crack opening displacement, Boundary element method. (jes).

This textbook offers readers an introduction to fracture mechanics, equipping them to grasp the basic ideas of the presented approaches to modeling in applied mechanics In the first part, the book reviews and expands on the classical theory of elastic and elasto-plastic material behavior. A solid understanding of these two topics is the essential prerequisite to advancing to damage and fracture mechanics. Thus, the second part of this course provides an introduction to the treatment of damage and fractures in the context of applied mechanics Wherever possible, the one-dimensional case is first introduced and then generalized in a following step. This departs somewhat from the more classical approach, where first the most general case is derived and then simplified to special cases. In general, the required mathematics background is kept to a minimum Tutorials are included at the end of each chapter, presenting the major steps for the solution and offering valuable tips and tricks. The supplementary problems featured in the book