Analysis of bimaterial interface cracks using the localized method of fundamental solutions

This short communication makes the first attempt to apply the localized method of fundamental solutions (LMFS), a newly-developed meshless collocation method, for fracture mechanics analysis of bimaterial interface crack problems. The asymptotic crack-tip field for bimaterial interface cracks exhibits an oscillatory behavior which is quite different from that for in-plane cracks in homogeneous materials. This paper describes an enriched LMFS approach whereby a set of enrichment functions are embedded in the classical LMFS approximation to account for the presence of interface cracks. This method automatically incorporates the oscillatory behavior of the near-tip fields and thus the complex stress intensity factors (SIFs) can be solved accurately with no or very little remeshing. The results presented show excellent accuracy for a range of two-dimensional (2D) bimaterial with interface cracks, where the complex SIFs for interface cracks are computed with relatively errors less than 0.6 per cent.