Hygrothermal Fracture Analysis in Dissimilar Materials

This paper demonstrates an explicit-implicit, finite element analysis for linear as well as nonlinear hygrothermal stress problems. Additional features, such as moisture diffusion equation, crack element and virtual crack extension(VCE) method for evaluating J-integral are implemented in this program. The Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics(LEFM) Theory is employed to estimate the crack driving force under the transient condition for an existing crack. Pores in materials are assumed to be saturated with moisture in the liquid form at the room temperature, which may vaporize as the temperature increases. The vaporization effects on the crack driving force are also studied. The ideal gas equation is employed to estimate the thermodynamic pressure due to vaporization at each time step after solving basic nodal values. A set of field equations governing the time dependent response of porous media are derived from balance laws based on the mixture theory. Darcy's law is assumed for the fluid flow through the porous media. Perzyna's viscoplastic model incorporating the Von-Mises yield criterion are implemented. The Green-Naghdi stress rate is used for the invariant of stress tensor under superposed rigid body motion. Isotropic elements are used for the spatial discretization and an iterative scheme based on the full Newton-Raphson method is used for solving the nonlinear governing equations.