Fracture Mechanics Study of a Compact Tension Specimen Using Abaqus/CAE

Abaqus/CAE includes modeling and postprocessing capabilities for fracture mechanics analyses. These features provide interactive access to the contour integral fracture mechanics technology in Abaqus/Standard. Several fracture-specific tools are available, such as those for creating seam cracks, defining singularities, selecting the crack front and crack tip, defining q-vectors or normals to the crack front, and creating focused meshes. With these tools models can be created to estimate J-integrals, stress intensity factors, and crack propagation directions. In this technology brief a standardized compact tension specimen is modeled, and J-integral results are compared with those generated from applicable American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards and from a laboratory testing method. It is shown that Abaqus results are in very close conformance with the experimental results.