SUMMARY
ALTHOUGH VARIOUS NUMERICAL METHODS ARE PROPOSED TO SOLVE A WIDE RANGE OF PROBLEMS SO FAR, EACH HAS ITS OWN ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. THEREFORE, IT WOULD BE HIGHLY DESIRABLE TO DEVELOP A COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT COMBINED APPROACH, WHICH MAKES USE OF THEIR ADVANTAGES AND REDUCES THEIR DRAWBACKS. IN THIS REGARD, A NON-INTRUSIVE ITERATIVE GLOBAL/LOCAL (IGL) ALGORITHM IS PROPOSED TO EVALUATE THE STRUCTURES WITH LOCAL DISCONTINUITY. FIRSTLY, IN EACH ITERATION, THE ENTIRE CONTINUUM DOMAIN IS SOLVED USING THE GALERKIN FINITE VOLUME (GFV) METHOD, WHICH CONSUMES LIGHT COMPUTATIONAL WORKLOAD FOR PREDICTING ACCURATE RESULTS OF LINEAR STRUCTURAL RESPONSE. THEN, THE ELEMENT FREE GALERKIN (EFG) MESHLESS METHOD IS LOCALLY EMPLOYED AS AN ACCURATE BUT COMPUTATIONALLY EXPENSIVE SOLVER TO COVER THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE GFV SOLVER IN THE CRACK ANALYSIS. THE SPECIFIC FORM OF QUASI-NEWTONIAN AND DYNAMIC ACCELERATORS ARE ADOPTED TO INCREASE THE CONVERGENCE RATE IN EACH COMPUTATIONAL INCREMENT. FINALLY, THE PROPOSED METHOD'S ACCURACY AND SPEED ARE EXAMINED BY COMPUTING STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS (SIFS) FOR SEVERAL DISTINCT 2D CRACKED MODELS.