Further Development of 3D Crack Growth Simulation Program to Include Contact Loading Situations

Crack growth in structures depends on the cyclic loads applied on it, such as mechanical, thermal and contact, as well as residual stresses, etc. To provide an accurate simulation of crack growth in structures, it is of high importance to integrate all kinds of loading situations in the simulations. Adapcrack3D is a simulation program that can accurately predict the propagation of cracks in real structures. However, until now, this three-dimensional program has only considered mechanical loads and static thermal loads. Therefore, the features of Adapcrack3D have been extended by including contact loading in crack growth simulations. The numerical simulation of crack propagation with Adapcrack3D is generally carried out using FE models of structures provided by the user. For simulating models with contact loading situations, Adapcrack3D has been updated to work with FE models containing multiple parts and necessary features such as coupling and surface interactions. Because Adapcrack3D uses the submodel technique for fracture mechanical evaluations, the architecture of the submodel is also modified to simulate models with contact definitions between the crack surfaces. This paper discusses the newly implemented attribute of the program with the help of illustrative examples. The results confirm that the contact simulation in Adapcrack3D is a major step in improving the functionality of the program.