Crack Growth in Concrete Using Boundary Elements (Topics in Engineering)

This book presents the Boundary Element Methods used for the analysis of crack growth in concrete structures. The analysis is based on the Dual Boundary Element Methods (DBEM) to represent cracks in concrete, and the Fictitious Crack Model (FCM) to represent the fracture process zone in concrete. The FCM in conjunction with the DBEM allows the simulation of crack growth within concrete in a straightforward manner. The advantage of this method is that for every crack extension increment, no remeshing is required and the crack increment direction is computed.