Abstract
A symmetric boundary integral formulation for cohesive cracks growing in the interior of homogeneous linear elastic isotropic media and/or at interfaces between these media is developed and implemented in a numerical code. The solution of a problem that includes cohesive cracks depends on the cohesive law adopted. In the present work, models based on the concept of free energy density
per unit undeformed area are considered. The corresponding constitutive cohesive equations present a softening branch which induces to the problem a potential instability. Thus, the development and implementation of a suitable solution algorithm capable of following the growth of the cohesive zone
becomes an important issue. An arc-length control combined with a Newton-Raphson algorithm for iterative solution of nonlinear equations is used. The Boundary Element Method is very attractive for modeling cohesive crack problems as all nonlinearities are located on the boundaries (including the crack boundaries) of linear elastic domains. A Galerkin approximation scheme, applied to a suitable symmetric integral formulation, ensures an easy treatment of cracks in homogeneous media and excellent convergence behavior of the numerical solution. Numerical results for the wedge split test are presented and compared with experimental results available in the literature.