INTEGRATED COMPUTATIONAL ALGORITHMS TO TREAT FRACTURE AND FRAGMENTATION: Development of Software, Based on the Truly Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin (M

The objective of the proposed research and development is to develop integrated computational algorithms, and attendant software, to treat fracture and fragmentation of brittle as well as ductile materials, using the Meshless Local Petrov Galerkin nmethod, which is a new pardigm in computational mechanics. The object of Phase I is to develop a three-dimensional code based on the MLPG method. The code will be thoroughly validated through simulations of static and dynamic problems for which analytical and other numerical solutions exist. These problems include: The Boussinesq problem; The Eshelby problem; The problem of non-planar three-dimensional fatigue crack growth in an elastic-plastic solid; and The dynamic Hertzian contact problem