A variational boundary integral method for the analysis of 3D surfaces of displacement discontinuity in general elastic solids is developed. By representing the displacement discontinuity as continuous distribution of dislocation loops and minimizing the potential energy of the solid, the kernels of the governing integral equation have milder singularities of type 1/R, and the resulting system of the equation is symmetric. The displacement discontinuity is solved by discretizing the integral equation on the surface with six-noded triangular elements based on the finite element methodology. Various computational issues such as adaptive remeshing, singular integration and determination of the saddle point configurations will be addressed in the analyses of three-dimensional crack growth, dislocation nucleation in crystals, hydraulic fracturing and earthquake physics.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved.