Numerical Analysis of Fracture Behavior of Functionally Graded Materials using 3D-XFEM

This paper presents the numerical evaluation of mixed stress intensity factors (SIFs) and non-singular terms of William's series (T-stress) of functionally graded materials (FGMs) using three-dimensional extended finite element method (3D-XFEM). Four-point bending specimen with crack perpendicular to material gradation have been used in this investigation in order to study the effect of some parameters (crack position, crack size, specimen thickness) on the failure of FGMs materials. The fracture parameters (K_I K_II, phase angle ψ and T-stress) obtained by the present simulation are compared with available experimental and numerical results. An excellent correlation was found of the 3D-XFEM simulations with those available in the literature. From the numerical results, a fitting procedure is performed in order to propose an analytical formulation and subsequently are validated against the 3D-XFEM results.