ABSTRACT

A strategy of coupling length scales from atomistic to continuum is investigated on the basis of quasicontinuum model for interface fracture problems. In the model, an atomistic region of the interest is discretized by finite elements and the positions of atoms are prescribed by means of nodal displacements of the elements with shape function for the reduction of the degrees of freedom. Total energy of the system consists of interatomic potentials, and minimized through variational method employed in conventional finite element formulation. In this study, we deal with the fracture behavior of Cu-Fe interface crack in two dimensional problems, and investigate the adequate discretization manner around the crack tip in use of quasicontinuum method.