Simulation of brittle fractures using energy-bond-based smoothed particle hydrodynamics
Yu Zhao, Zhiqiang Zhou, Jing Bi, Chaolin Wang
Abstract
In this work, an energy-bond-based smoothed particle hydrodynamics (EB-SPH) model is proposed to study the crack initiation and coalescence of rock under uniaxial compression. The model overcomes the conventional SPH algorithm for computing discontinuous problems. In this framework, interacting particles are connected by energy-bonds. Tensile and shear fractures are described by the change in energy stored on energy-bonds. The damaged energy-bond is considered the place of crack initiation, and then crack propagation is determined by tracking the order of the damaged energy-bonds. The interaction coefficient is introduced to describe the interaction level of particles at both ends of the damaged energy-bond. Rock samples that contain a single inclined flaw and two parallel and unparallel flaws are simulated to validate the proposed EB-SPH model. It can be observed that the present EB-SPH model can obtain the crack initiation position and crack coalescence patterns, which shows good agreement with previous experimental observations.