The permanence and durability of mechanical and structural elements with discontinuities such as cracks and voids require the calculation of SIF (stress intensity factors) with reasonable fidelity. SIF is a crucial parameter that predicts crack growth and failure behavior by quantifying the stress field neighboring the crack tip. Therefore, understanding the sophisticated characteristics of the stress fields in the vicinity of discontinuity requires an effective way of calculating SIFs. Currently, there are numerous methods to calculate SIF, such as FVM (Finite Volume Method), FEM (Finite Element Method), BEM (Boundary Element Method), XFEM (Extended Finite Element Method), Phase field method and Meshfree methods. For an extended period, FEM is one of the leading methods in solving fracture mechanics problems. Though FEM is quite robust in dealing with several engineering problems, it has got its inherent drawbacks to deal with singular fields like discontinuities. Hence to reasonably capture moving discontinuities, finer meshes near the discontinuous field are required that demand more computation effort and time. To alleviate the above drawback of FEM, this study employed Extended Isogeometric Analysis (XIGA) to efficiently and effectively determine the SIFs in the case of fissured plates as benchmarking fissure problems. In this study SIFs in relation to crack length were examined for edge and center cracked plates and results were compared with the theoretical values.

One of the major successes in the field of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) is the groundwork of the stress intensity factor (SIF) computation. The approaches used to carry out SIF values may be analytical, semi-analytical, experimental or numerical. Each one of the above methods has its own benefits however the use of numerical solutions has become the most frequent and popular. Numerous schemes for the numerical computation of SIF have been developed, the J-integral method being the most popular one. In this article we examine the SIFs of an edge cracked two dimensional (2-D) steel plate subjected to tensile loading. Extended finite element (XFEM) computational scheme has been employed to estimate the values of SIF. The SIF values of cracks with different lengths and inclination angles (different configurations) have been examined by utilizing the domain based interaction integral approach. The effect of crack inclination and crack position on SIFs (KI and KII) has also been studied. The results obtained in this study were compared with those from literature and theoretical values and observed that they are in close agreement.