A technique for capturing structural crack geometry in numerical simulation based on the invariant level set method

Engineering structures usually suffer from cracks. The crack geometry has an influence on the structural mechanical properties and subsequent crack propagations. However, as an extensively utilized method in fracture analysis, the extended finite element method provided by Abaqus fails to output the specific location and dimensions of fractures. In this study, a technique to capture the crack geometry is proposed. The technique is based on the invariant level set method (I-LSM), which can avoid updating the level set function during crack development. The solution is achieved by an open-source plug-in programmed by Python. Three examples were performed to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the program. The result shows that the developed program can accurately output the crack geometry in both the 2D and 3D models. The open-source plug-in codes are included as supplementary material.