Crack growth of drill pipe is a typical discontinuous problem. It is difficult to simulate with conventional finite element method and extended finite element method (XFEM) is developed in recent years for the problem. With the introduction of XFEM, the XFEM model of 5 inch drill pipe was proposed with different depth initial cracks under combined action between torque and tension. Based on the simulation, It is found that the smaller cracks is not easy to grow, whilst the crack of depth more than 2mm could grow under relatively lower external load and larger growth surface, eventually leads to pipe fracture failure. Through this simulation on crack growth of drill pipe, it is showed that the XFEM is appropriate in analysis of fracture failure.