the context of capturing crack development modeled on cohesive crack concept, it appears that the issue of how to represent a displacement disconti- nuity in the FE-environment is crucial for the development of an efficient and robust solution procedure. In…
the context of capturing crack development modeled on cohesive crack concept, it appears that the issue of how to represent a displacement disconti- nuity in the FE-environment is crucial for the development of an efficient and robust solution procedure. In the present paper, the qualitative behavior of two crack band models are investigated with respect to the implementation with embedded approximation, which is considered as an alternative to smeared and other discrete crack representations. The formulation is on a mixed variational formulation that is extended to include internal discon- tinuities. The major advantage compared to the inter-element representation that advanced mesh (re )alignment strategies are totally avoided and un- structured meshes are sufficient. The method is applied to two different frac- ture models at the analysis of a notched concrete plate.