XFEM with Smoothing Technique for Static Fracture Mechanics in Three-Dimension

In this work, the advantages of face-based smoothing technique and extended finite element method (XFEM) are combined to develop a face-based smoothed extended finite element method (FS-XFEM). By this new method, arbitrary crack geometry can be modeled and crack advance can be simulated without remeshing. At the same time, the integration of singular term over the volume around the crack front can be eliminated induced by the transformation of volume integration into area integration. Numerical examples are presented to test the accuracy and convergence rate of the FS-XFEM. From the results, it is clear that smoothing technique can improve the performance of XFEM for three-dimensional fracture problems.