Proceedings of the Thirty-second (2022) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference
Shanghai, China, June 5–10, 2022
Copyright © 2022 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-81-4; ISSN 1098-6189

www.isope.org

Predicting crack propagation on marine concrete with peridynamics: a comparative study
Shuang Lia,b, Haining Lua,b*, Pengfei Suna, Jianmin Yanga
a State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Shanghai, Chinab Yazhou Bay Institute of Deepsea SCI-TECH, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Sanya, Chinaet al, 2019). For instance, both the smeared crack model and discrete
crack model suffer from mesh-alignment dependence and spurious
stress locking, which make them inconvenient for simulating complex
crack problems (Cervera and Chiumenti, 2006; Jirasek andZimmermann, 1998). Numerical results obtained by the extended finiteelement method (XFEM) and strong discontinuity embedded approach
have been verified to be mesh-independent and numerically stable(Oliver et al, 2006); however, they are rather cumbersome to represent
the crack topology and track the propagation path explicitly,
particularly for crack branching and merging in 3D cases (Wu, 2017).
The virtual multidimensional internal bonds method (VMIB)
incorporates a fracture criterion directly into the constitutive
formulations of the material, and it effectively simulates fracture
growth (Zhennan and Xiurun, 2005). However, there are still sometheoretical challenges in describing and simulating the propagation,bifurcation, and coalescence of cracks in quasi-brittle materials (Yanget al, 2019). such as marine concrete. The particle discrete element
method deals with the failure process without using complex
constitutive equations, and there is no satisfactory approach to calibrate
the parameters of the model in terms of the inherent material properties(Wang and Tonon, 2009; Wu and Xu, 2016).
Peridynamics was proposed by (Silling, 2000), it (PD) can overcome
the limitations of the existing methods which is based on classicalcontinuum mechanics (CCM) and has been successfully applied to deal
with discontinuous and wide classes of fracture and damage problems
in ocean engineering. PD theory uses an integral formulation rather
than a partial differential equation to compute the forces on a material
particle. Such formulations are defined at the discontinuities and thisunique framework of mathematical equations can be used both with andwithout discontinuities. It is better suited for simulating fracture
initiation and crack propagation and does not require any specifictreatment at discontinuities compared with CCM. In addition, PD has
the advantages of finite element, meshless, and molecular dynamics
methods (Silling and Askari, 2005). it is promising to simulate
microcrack nucleation to macro-crack propagation for the concurrenceof multiple cracks (Shen et al, 2021).
Currently, PD has been applied successfully to deal with discontinuous
and wide classes of fracture and damage problems in ocean engineering.
Cong and Oterkus (2019) provided a PD formulation for beam
structures to predict damage in offshore structures. Wang et al (2018)

ABSTRACT
Predicting crack initiation and its growth in marine concrete is still amajor challenge. In present work, the fidelity of the peridynamics (PD)theory in predicting marine concrete fracture is investigated through a
comparative study. PD predictions for fracture propagation paths arecompared against various experimental observations and the previous
predictions from the virtual internal bond (VIB) numerical method. It isfound that the PD simulations capture concrete crack propagation andbranching that are in agreement with experimental observations. PD
theory is a suitable analysis method for marine concrete dynamic
fracture problems involving multiple cracks with complex branchingpatterns.

KEY WORDS: Peridynamics; virtual internal bond; marine concrete;
fracture; crack propagation.

INTRODUCTION
Concrete has been widely used in marine environment due to theexcellent behavior of these concrete structures, especially in terms ofmaintenance and fatigue, such as piers, piles, liquefied natural gas
terminals, floating structures and coastal power stations (MedeirosJunior et al, 2015). However, marine concrete structures bear inevitably
various loadings or environmental action in the service process, andthese will be speeded up seriously and the deterioration of concrete
properties will therefore be accelerated and even structural failure(Packet al, 2010; Yu et al, 2017). Accordingly, it is of paramount importancewith appropriate numerical method to investigate the crack initiationand propagate of marine concrete for the security and durability ofconcrete for ocean construction.
To predict the crack behavior of concrete-like materials, many
approaches have been proposed due to classical continuum mechanics(CCM). However, it is still a major challenge to predict crack initiationand its growth in marine concrete materials by applying classicalcontinuum mechanics (CCM) formulated using spatial partial
differential equations because spatial derivatives are singularities at
discontinuities, and they result in convergence problems. Therefore,
additional treatment is required at discontinuities when using CCM
theory; this makes the discontinuous problem difficult to solve (Huang3011