This analysis is conducted using the same initial mesh for all crack sizes. The only change is in the initial crack specification in the Zencrack input file. Once a suitable initial mesh is generated the analysis can therefore be conducted very quickly and efficiently.

This example has used the crack-block method but the mesh independent remeshing method provides an even more powerful capability for parametric studies because of the independent nature of the geometric crack definition and the underlying mesh.

Another situation in which a parametric study can be required is comparison with existing published solutions. In some cases the approach of modifying the Zencrack input is not the most convenient and instead the various crack shapes can be developed by carrying out a "pseudo-crack-growth" analysis. For this type of analysis the initial crack is defined and instead of advancing by the normal means of stress intensity factors and a crack growth law, the crack is advanced in a user subroutine in order to control the shape of each generated crack profile.

The example below shows such an analysis in which an initial surface elliptic defect in a circular cross section shaft is loaded by cyclic bending. In order to compare stress intensity factors against published data for different specified ellipse sizes a pseudocrack-growth run is carried out to generate a sequence of elliptic profiles in a single Zencrack analysis. The "true" profiles based on stress intensity factors and a crack growth data, in this case a Paris law, are somewhat different.