Several local embedded discontinuity formulations have already been developed, in which con- stant strain triangles and constant jumps are adopted. However, these formulations lead to jump and traction discontinuity across element boundaries and stress locking effects. Herein, a new contribution…
Several local embedded discontinuity formulations have already been developed, in which con- stant strain triangles and constant jumps are adopted. However, these formulations lead to jump and traction discontinuity across element boundaries and stress locking effects. Herein, a new contribution to embedded strong discontinuities is given. A generalized discrete strong discontinuity approach (GSDA) is presented, in which non-homogeneous jumps can be embedded in any type of parent finite elements. A comparison to the generalized finite element method (GFEM) is also established. With this new formulation the additional de- grees of freedom are global and continuous jumps and tractions across the element boundaries are always ob- tained. The kinematics of the GSDA accurately reproduces both rigid-body motion and stretching induced by the opening of a discontinuity. Some simple examples are presented to illustrate the ability of this formulation in reproducing different opening modes. Structural examples, involving both mode-I and mixed-mode frac- ture, are also simulated and compared to experimental results.