Simulation of fracture phenomena in polycrystalline microsystems by a domain decomposition approach

In this paper, a domain decomposition technique applied to the simulation of fracture problems in polycrystalline microsystems is proposed. The algorithms for the finite element analysis of mechanical response of polycrystalline solids, under impact dynamics and in the presence of crack-propagation, proposed in [1-5] are re-written in the framework of the domain decomposition techniques, in order to reduce the computational burden and to obtain an efficient computational tool. Applications to three dimensional, polysilicon MEMS microstructures evidence the computational improvement derived from the approach