Modelling interfacial cracking with non-matching cohesive interface elements

Interfacial cracking occurs in many engineering problems such as delamination in composite laminates, matrix/interface debonding in fibre reinforced composites etc. Computational modelling of these interfacial cracks usually employs compatible or matching cohesive interface elements. In this paper, incompatible or non-matching cohesive interface elements are proposed for interfacial fracture mechanics problems. They allow non-matching finite element discretisations of the opposite crack faces thus lifting the constraint on the compatible discretisation of the domains sharing the interface. The formulation is based on a discontinuous Galerkin method and works with both initially elastic and rigid cohesive laws. The proposed formulation has the following advantages compared to classical interface elements: (i) non-matching discretisations of the domains and (ii) no high dummy stiffness. Two and three dimensional quasi-static fracture simulations are conducted to demonstrate the method. Our method not only simplifies the meshing process but also it requires less computational demands, compared with standard interface elements, for problems that involve materials/solids having a large mismatch in stiffnesses.