Parallel simulations of dynamic fracture using extrinsic cohesive elements

In this paper, we present a novel parallel implementation of extrinsic initially rigid cohesive elements in an explicit finite element solver designed for the simulation of dynamic fracture events. The implementation is based on activating instead of inserting the cohesive elements and uses ParFUM, a parallel framework specifically developed for simulations involving unstructured meshes. Aspects of the parallel implementation are described, along with an analysis of its performance on 1 to 512 processors. Important cache effects and communication costs are included in this analysis. The implementation is validated by simulating the trapping of a crack along an inclined material interface.