am a student of M. Tech. 2nd year. My project topic for dissertation is "Numerical & Experimental Estimation of Fracture Toughness of Some Materials using Compact Tension Specimen". In this dissertation I also wanted to develop a code which directly gives me the values of stress intensity factor just like ansys.

Actually I have develop an matlab programm (using linear quadrilateral element) which gives me the value of displacement at the cracktip using that i would be finding the displacement extrapolation method i would be calculating stress intensity factors

But the major hindrance in my matlab code is that when i am calculating the stresses at the crack tip there is large deviation in cracktip stresses shown by matlab code and ansys. Looking at the ansys theory reference it was found that apart from four shape function i.e, N1, N2, N3 and N4 they are using two more shape function N5 and N6 whose values are (1-s^2) and (1-t^2) s for x-direction and t for y-direction respectively.

Also such type of shape function is described in R. D. Cook, Bathe and Zienkiewics books which they are calling as non-conformal elements which are used to remove the shear lock effect of linear quadrilateral elements and having co-efficient as a1 a2 for x-direction and a3 and a4 for y-direction. But nothing has been stated about the values of ai (i varies from 1 to 4).

Hence Sir, I would be most thankful to you if you could give me guidelines regarding how to solve such type of FEM problem having non-conformal elements or u could give me reference where Problems are solved using Non-conformal elements I would be most thankful to you

Regards

Zoeb Kaizar Lakdawala
M. Tech (Industrial Process Equipment Design)
S. V. National Institute of Technology, Surat
Mobile : 09904288552