It is possible that the crack tip lies within the element, which is the capability of XFEM. Are you focusing on the simulation or the experimental work?

you can model and simulate crack and growth crack in ABAQUS by use of 2 different method. 1- Contour Integral 2-XFEM

so, to use of XFEM method, you can find a good example of 2D plate with edge crack and tension loading on webpage : http://www.matthewpais.com/abaqus

Dr. Mathew Pais has good experience about XFEM .

Dear Ming Liu,

Thank you for the response. I am trying to simulate a simple problem i.e. a plate with a notch in left or right boundary. The top boundary is under uniaxial tension where the bottom boundary is fixed. Now, if I model the above problem in ABAQUS, while defining the crack, even though I define the cracktip to be lie within an element, if I datacheck the file, abaqus automatically shift (I dont know what it actually does) the crack tip to intersect with the element boundary. Is it a limitation of ABAQUS?

Thanks again

Please define the crack tip surrounded by many elements. What is the reason for defining a crack tip within one element?

http://academy.3ds.com/learning-materials/

login and see the videos may help u

hi 

this videos can help 

1/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hleGKlOAeK0

2/ https://youtu.be/eEtVxAhExJA