A displacement discontinuity method of high-order accuracy in fracture mechanics

In this paper, the displacement discontinuity method of higher order of accuracy and its application to the problems of fracture mechanics are considered. In common practice of application of boundary element methods, the methods with step function of boundary displacement are often used. Their advantage is the simplicity of its calculation scheme with a rather good accuracy of solution at the points of region which are remote from the boundary. In the mechanics of cracks (lines or surfaces of displacement discontinuity), it is required to describe the behavior of stresses near the crack edges as accurately as possible. These requirements make it necessary to improve the accuracy of numerical methods in use. In this paper such methods are proposed. It is shown that the methods of higher order of continuity of boundary displacement implemented by our programm increase the accuracy of calculation of displacement and stress fields near the boundary within the region.