Elasto plastic crack growth by XFEM: A review

This paper presents a review on the applications of extended finite element method in the modelling of elastoplastic crack growth. This article presents an overview and recent progress of the extended finite element method in the analysis of crack growth. It summarizes the important milestones achieved by the finite element community in the arena of computational fracture mechanics. The work aims at discussing the basic ideas and methodologies of extended finite element method (XFEM). The advantage of the method is that the element topology need not conform to the surfaces of the cracks. XFEM models all types of cracks independent of the mesh chosen for analysis. Moreover, XFEM coupled with the level set method provides the accurate description of complex engineering geometries, which may otherwise be impossible to solve using the standard finite element method. The extended finite element method (XFEM) is an accurate and powerful numerical technique for modelling different types of discontinuities such as holes, cracks, inclusions and contact surfaces.