Abstract: To simulate the tensile fracture process of cracked plates using the element removal method， this paper analyses the method of choosing element failure strain and various influencing factors. Resorting to the finite element software，MSC.Dytran，the maximum load，displacement and energy of the cracked plate are calculated，based on which the effects of the material property and grid size on element failure strain are investigated. The deviation of the failure strain under three criterions is discussed. The results show that the failure strain determined by the energy criteria，which considers both the load and displacement，best agrees with the experimental data，and the mechanical property of cracked plates are also reflected correctly. On the other hand，the maximum displacement criteria provides larger maximum load result than expected，which makes it suitable for the numerical calculation that focus on the displacement of cracked plates. Finally，the deviation of the maximum load criteria is too large to reflect the accurate mechanical property of cracked plates. Above all，the element removal method is best suited for simulating the fracture process of large structures.