In an incremental crack extension analysis each crack increment is in general modelled
with a straight extension. In order to avoid introduction of an error when the local crack growth
criterion is used with an incremental formulation, each straight crack extension would have to be
infinitesimal as the crack growth direction changes when the crack grows. A correction procedure to
correct the extension direction of the increment can however be applied to ensure that a unique
crack path is achieved with different analyses of the same problem performed with different size of
the crack-extension increments. A proposed correction procedure and an reference correction
procedure are demonstrated by solving a computational crack growth example. The demonstration
shows that analyses of the crack path performed with big crack extensions and the proposed crack
correction procedure are in excellent agreement with analyses of the crack path performed with very
small crack extensions. Furthermore it is shown that the reference correction procedure has a
tendency to overcorrect the crack growth direction if the stop criterion for the iterative correction
procedure is not specified for each new crack growth analysis.
Mixed-Mode Crack Extension based on Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics and AE-SiGMA Analysis
