Numerical aspects in the SGBEM solution of softening cohesive interface problems

Some numerical aspects of a new symmetric Galerkin boundary integral formulation presented in [A. Salvadori, A symmetric boundary integral formulation for cohesive interface problems, Comput. Mech. 32 (2003) 381-391] connected with a like arc-length technique for softening cohesive interface problems introduced in [F. Freddi, Cohesive interface analysis via boundary integral equations, Ph.D. thesis, University of Bologna, Italy, 2004] are here investigated. Further, if the problem is invariant with respect to a finite group G of congruences of the Euclidean space R^2, we propose to reduce the computational cost of the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method (SGBEM) matrix evaluation and linear system solution using suitable restriction matrices strictly related to a system of irreducible matrix representation of G. Some numerical simulations are presented and discussed. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.