New CZM for Interfacial Crack Growth

Abstract

The cohesive zone model (CZM) has been widely used for numerical simulations of interface crack growth. However, geometrical and material discontinuities decrease the accuracy and efficiency of the CZM when based on the conventional finite element method (CFEM). In order to promote the development of numerical simulation of interfacial crack growth, a new CZM, based on the wavelet finite element method (WFEM), is presented. Some fundamental issues regarding CZM of interface crack growth of double cantilever beam (DCB) testing were studied. The simulation results were compared with the experimental and simulation results of CFEM. It was found that the new CZM had higher accuracy and efficiency in the simulation of interface crack growth. At last, the impact of crack initiation length and elastic constants of material on interface crack growth was studied based on the new CZM. These results provided a basis for reasonable structure design of composite material in engineering.