Preconditioned Numerical Manifold Method for Linear Elastic Fractures

Fractures have attracted the attention of computational scientists for several decades. The modeling and simulation of fractures have been a major motivation for developing enriched finite element methods (FEMs), such as the numerical manifold method (NMM). However, ill-conditioning has always haunted NMM and other enriched FEMs when they are utilized for linear elastic fracture problems. Generally, ill-conditioning for a fracture problem is caused by two main issues: the arbitrary cut of the mesh by the fracture path and linear dependence related to the crack-tip enrichments. It is significantly challenging to overcome these two types of ill-conditioning using a single technique. In this study, we employ a preconditioner based on global normalization and local Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization of bases to eliminate these two ill-conditioning issues in NMM entirely and simultaneously. Various numerical examples have demonstrated that the proposed preconditioning strategy is highly effective in reducing the condition number and iteration counts of a iterative solver. It is highly robust, stable, and efficient and can be incorporated into enriched FEM programs to significantly facilitate the analyses of linear elastic fractures.