Crack propagation under thermo-mechanical loadings based on moving mesh strategy

This paper proposes an effective FE modeling for simulating fracture propagation in linear elastic media under mechanical and thermal loadings. The model joins Moving Mesh (MM) technique with Interaction integral (M−integral) method to simulate crack advancing phenomena. MM reproduces growing cracks by moving the mesh nodes around the crack front, according to proper fracture criteria. In particular, the method adopts the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) Formulation, which handles random cracks, reducing the recourse to remeshing processes. In this context, M−integral determines the fracture quantities at crack front, required to find onset conditions and propagation direction. This takes place during the entire analysis, thus ensuring quite smooth crack paths. Comparison results with other numerical strategies serve as primary tests to check the efficacy of the proposed approach. Besides, simulations with multiple growing cracks in both complex geometries and boundary conditions let checking performance. The results denote that the proposed method is a powerful and versatile tool for reproducing complex crack propagation scenarios.