This important textbook provides an introduction to the concepts of the newly developed extended finite element method (XFEM) for fracture analysis of structures, as well as for other related engineering applications.

One of the main advantages of the method is that it avoids any need for remeshing or geometric crack modelling in numerical simulation, while generating discontinuous fields along a crack and around its tip. The second major advantage of the method is that by a small increase in number of degrees of freedom, far more accurate solutions can be obtained. The method...

This book describes the basics and developments of the new XFEM approach to fracture analysis of composite structures and materials. It provides state of the art techniques and algorithms for fracture analysis of structures including numeric examples at the end of each chapter as well as an accompanying website which will include MATLAB resources, executables, data files, and simulation procedures of XFEM.

• The first reference text for the extended finite element method (XFEM) for fracture analysis of structures and materials
• Includes theory and applications, with...