[petsc-users] Cohesive Element Support

[Jacob Faibussowitsch]

Hello,

I am looking to perform large scale fracture and crack propagation simulations and have a few questions regarding PETSc support for this. Specifically I am looking for cohesive surface element support with a few twists:

1. Is there support for zero thickness surface elements? For example modeling virtually flat patches of adhesives holding together two larger structures being pulled apart.
2. Is there support for “joining” two possibly distinct meshes with cohesive surface elements? For example say I have two distinct cylinders representing fibers which would “touch" to form an X shape.
3. In a similar vein, is there support for a mesh to fracture entirely along a crack formed through the cohesive elements? Imagine the aforementioned X configuration separating entirely into two separate cylinders again.
4. Is there a mechanism by which you can classify existing elements as cohesive elements?
5. Is there an already implemented way of imposing tie-constraints between independent meshes? This would potentially be used to tie high order cohesive cells which would have a non-conforming interface to the “regular” mesh.

From googling I have come across DMPlexCreateHybridMesh(), DMPlexConstructCohesiveCells(), and DMPlexCreateCohesiveSubmesh(). While these do implement cohesive cells  these functions don’t at first glance seem to allow one to implement the above. 

Best regards,

Jacob Faibussowitsch
(Jacob Fai - booss - oh - vitch)
Cell: (312) 694-3391

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