Energy flux associated with a plane crack along an (hyper)elastic bimaterial interface

A numerical procedure, incorporated with the finite element solutions, is developed to evaluate the energy flux vector for a crack located along the interface of 2-D hyperelastic bimaterial solids. The formulation is considered with finite strains for use with both linear and nonlinear material behavior. The formulation is verified to be path-independent in a modified sense and so the near-tip region, where singular mechanical behavior dominates, is always included. Special attention is hence addressed on appropriate modeling of the singular behavior. The numerical results show good accuracy without using any particular singular finite elements.