A Peridynamic Study on Crack Growth in Plates with Two Anti-symmetric Cracks under Various Tensile Velocities

Despite the development of some advanced concepts in fracture mechanics during recent decades, the prediction of crack initiation and its growth in materials is still a major challenge. The main difficulty is because of the continuum based mathematical formulation, which assumes that a body remains continuous as it deforms. In fact, the classical theory is formulated using spatial partial differential equations. This presents a characteristic limitation to the classical theory, as the spatial derivatives in the governing equations lose their meaning due to the presence of a discontinuity, such as a crack. To overcome this problem, Peridynamic theory could be used to improve the analysis of cracked structures. Basically, the peridynamic theory is a reformulation of the equation of motion in solid mechanics that is better suited for modeling bodies with discontinuities, such as cracks. The theory uses spatial integral equations that can be applied to a discontinuity. The present study uses this approach to study the effects of applying tensile loads on crack paths in a plate with two parallel initial cracks located in an anti-symmetric manner. The results are compared with other investigations and it is shown that the velocity of applying load has significant effect on crack path and branching.