Limit analysis and convex programming: A decomposition approach of the kinematic mixed method

This paper proposes an original decomposition approach to the upper bound method of limit analysis. It is based on a mixed finite element approach and on a convex interior point solver using linear or quadratic discontinuous velocity fields. Presented in plane strain, this method appears to be rapidly convergent, as verified in the Tresca compressed bar problem in the linear velocity case. Then, using discontinuous quadratic velocity fields, the method is applied to the celebrated problem of the stability factor of a Tresca vertical slope: the upper bound is lowered to 3.7776—value to be compared with the best published lower bound 3.772—by succeeding in solving non‐linear optimization problems with millions of variables and constraints. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discontinuous Galerkin methods with plane waves for the displacement‐based acoustic equation

Several special finite element methods have been proposed to solve Helmholtz problems in the mid‐frequency regime, such as the Partition of Unity Method, the Ultra Weak Variational Formulation and the Discontinuous Enrichment Method. The first main purpose of this paper is to present a discontinuous Galerkin method with plane waves (which is a variant of the Discontinuous Enrichment Method) to solve the displacement‐based acoustic equation. The use of the displacement variable is often necessary in the context of fluid–structure interactions. A well‐known issue with this model is the presence of spurious vortical modes when one uses standard finite elements such as Lagrange elements. This problem, also known as the locking phenomenon, is observed with several other vector based equations such as incompressible elasticity and electromagnetism. So this paper also aims at assessing if the special finite element methods suffer from the locking phenomenon in the context of the displacement acoustic equation. The discontinuous Galerkin method presented in this paper is shown to be very accurate and stable, i.e. no spurious modes are observed. The optimal choice of the various parameters are discussed with regards to numerical accuracy and conditioning. Some interesting properties of the mixed displacement–pressure formulation are also presented. Furthermore, the use of the Partition of Unity Method is also presented, but it is found that spurious vortical modes may appear with this method. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A mixed‐enhanced finite‐element for the analysis of laminated composite plates

This paper presents a new 4‐node finite‐element for the analysis of laminated composite plates. The element is based on a first‐order shear deformation theory and is obtained through a mixed‐enhanced approach. In fact, the adopted variational formulation includes as variables the transverse shear as well as enhanced incompatible modes introduced to improve the in‐plane deformation. The problem is then discretized using bubble functions for the rotational degrees of freedom and functions linking the transverse displacement to the rotations. The proposed element is locking free, it does not have zero energy modes and provides accurate in‐plane/out‐of‐plane deformations. Furthermore, a procedure for the computation of the through‐the‐thickness shear stresses is discussed, together with an iterative algorithm for the evaluation of the shear correction factors. Several applications are investigated to assess the features and the performances of the proposed element. Results are compared with analytical solutions and with other finite‐element solutions. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mixed‐enhanced formulation for geometrically linear axisymmetric problems

A four‐noded quadrilateral axisymmetric formulation in the context of a mixed‐enhanced method is presented. The strain field is represented by two sets of element parameters, which results in enhanced performance and coarse mesh accuracy in bending dominated problems and locking‐free response in the near incompressible limit. The mixed fields presented are such that variational stress recovery is permissible. In addition, the formulation is cast such that the mixed parameters are obtained explicitly yielding finite element arrays with the proper rank using standard order quadrature. In this paper our attention is restricted to the area of geometrically linear problems in solid mechanics. Representative simulations show favourable performance of the formulation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Path‐following analysis of thin‐walled structures and comparison with asymptotic post‐critical solutions

A path‐following non‐linear elastic analysis for structures composed of assemblages of flat slender elastic panels is presented. The proposed path‐following method employs FEM technology and a kinematical model to analyse these structures using a Koiter asymptotic approach. As a result it is possible to verify the accuracy achieved by the asymptotic method. The proposed mixed path‐following formulation is both efficient and robust with regards to the locking extrapolation phenomenon that strongly affects compatible formulations. The use of an HC finite element makes it possible to avoid the problem of the finite rotations in the space, maintaining a high degree of continuity and making the numeric formulation simple and efficient. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generalized mixed variational methods for Reissner plate and its applications

 Based on the mechanism of shear locking phenomenon and potential functional of Reissner plate bending problem, the generalized mixed variational principle for Reissner plate analysis is presented by parameterized Lagrange multiplier method. The proposed variational functional contains splitting factors which are able to adjust the shear potential energy and shear complementary energy components in it. The generalized mixed finite element formulation of bilinear quardrilateral element for Reissner plate bending analysis is established in terms of the new variational principle. The stiffness of the finite element model can be changed by the alteration of the splitting factors. Thus both the free of shear locking and higher accuracy are obtained by the choice of appropriate splitting factors. The most important is that this paper gives one self-adaptative way to choose the splitting factors for thin and moderately thick plates. This results in the comparative order of magnitude between the bending stiffness and shear stiffness for the arbitrary thickness. In the application of two-by-two exact Gaussian integration scheme to the proposed mixed element model, numerical examples show that free of locking is obtained even in the thin plate limit and high accuracy is given for moderately thick plate. Received: 15 January 2002 / Accepted: 10 September 2002 This work is partially supported by the National Nature Science Fund in China under Award No. 53978376     

Finite element solution of free‐surface ship‐wave problems

An unstructured finite element solver to evaluate the ship‐wave problem is presented. The scheme uses a non‐structured finite element algorithm for the Euler or Navier–Stokes flow as for the free‐surface boundary problem. The incompressible flow equations are solved via a fractional step method whereas the non‐linear free‐surface equation is solved via a reference surface which allows fixed and moving meshes. A new non‐structured stabilized approximation is used to eliminate spurious numerical oscillations of the free surface. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ductile damage modelling with locking‐free regularised GTN model

The major goal of this work is to develop a robust modelling strategy for the simulation of ductile damage development including crack initiation and subsequent propagation. For that purpose, a Gurson‐type model is used. This model class, as many other damage models, leads to significant material softening and must be used within a large deformation framework due to the ductile character of the materials. This leads to 2 main difficulties that should be dealt with carefully: mesh dependency and volumetric locking. In this work, a logarithmic finite strain framework is adopted in which the Gurson‐Tvergaard‐Needleman constitutive law is reformulated. Then a nonlocal formulation with regularisation of hardening variable is applied so as to solve mesh dependency and strain localization problem. In addition, the nonlocal model is combined with mixed “displacement‐pressure‐volume variation” elements to avoid volumetric locking. Thereby, a mesh‐independent and locking‐free finite strain framework suitable for the modelling of ductile rupture is established. Attention is paid to mathematical properties and numerical performance of the model. Finally, the model parameters are identified on an experimental database for a nuclear piping steel. Simulations of standard test specimens (notched tensile bars and compact tension and single edge notched tensile cracked specimens) are performed and compared to experimental results.     

Elasto-plastic analysis for cyclic loading and tresca yield condition

Incremental theory of plasticity along with the finite element direct stiffness method is used for inelastic structural analysis. Tresca yield surface suitable for kinematic hardening formulation of the incremental theory of plasticity is presented. A uniaxial symmetric Tresca yield condition is used to formulate a small displacement theory of the incremental plasticity for material with both equal and unequal tension and compression yield strength.Constitutive laws for plane stress problem based on the linear kinematic hardening and associated flow rule are derived for sides and corners of the yield surface. In this formulation Ziegler's modification of Prager's rule has been used. Finite element formulation, numerical solution and applications are discussed.     

On using linear elements in incompressible plane strain problems: a simple edge based approach for triangles

In this paper a simple iterative method is presented for finite element solution of incompressible plane strain problems using linear elements. Instead of using a mixed formulation approach, we use an equivalent displacement/velocity approach in an iterative manner. Control volumes are taken for regions which are to exhibit incompressible behaviour. For triangular elements the control volume is chosen as the area built on the parts of each pair of elements at the sides of an edge. In this case, elements are let to exchange volume. It is shown that the proposed edge based approach removes the deficiency of the linear triangular elements i.e. locking effect. Similar edge based approach is applied to the linear quadrilateral elements. However, if the control volume is chosen as the element volume the formulation gives similar results as the discontinuous mixed formulation using one pressure point without exhibiting instability behaviour. The formulation is based on decomposition of the displacement/velocity field into deviatoric and volumetric parts. The volumetric part is iteratively eliminated without confronting locking or instability phenomenon. The iterative procedure is very cheap and simple to be implemented in any FEM code. Several examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the procedure. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Displacement/pressure mixed interpolation in the method of finite spheres

The displacement‐based formulation of the method of finite spheres is observed to exhibit volumetric ‘locking’ when incompressible or nearly incompressible deformations are encountered. In this paper, we present a displacement/pressure mixed formulation as a solution to this problem. We analyse the stability and optimality of the formulation for several discretization schemes using numerical inf–sup tests. Issues concerning computational efficiency are also discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive multigrid method using duality in plane elasticity

This work presents an adaptive multigrid method for the mixed formulation of plane elasticity problems. First, a mixed‐hybrid formulation is introduced where the continuity of the normal components of the stress tensor is indirectly imposed using a Lagrange multiplier. Two different numerical approximations, naturally associated with the primal problem and the dual problem, are then proposed. The Complementary Energy Principle provides an a posteriori error estimate. For the effective solving of both systems of equations, a non‐standard multigrid algorithm has been designed that allows us to solve the two problems, dual and primal, with reasonable cost and in an integrated way. Finally, a significant numerical application is presented to check the efficiency of the error estimator and the good performance of the algorithm. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Finite element approximations for near-incompressible and near-inextensible transversely isotropic bodies

This work comprises a detailed theoretical and computational study of the boundary value problem for transversely isotropic linear elastic bodies. General conditions for well-posedness are derived in terms of the material parameters. The discrete form of the displacement problem is formulated for conforming finite element approximations. The error estimate reveals that anisotropy can play a role in minimising or even eliminating locking behaviour for moderate values of the ratio of Young's moduli in the fibre and transverse directions. In addition to the standard conforming approximation, an alternative formulation, involving under-integration of the volumetric and extensional terms in the weak formulation, is considered. The latter is equivalent to either a mixed or a perturbed Lagrangian formulation, analogously to the well-known situation for the volumetric term. A set of numerical examples confirms the locking-free behaviour in the near-incompressible limit of the standard formulation with moderate anisotropy, with locking behaviour being clearly evident in the case of near-inextensibility. On the other hand, under-integration of the extensional term leads to extensional locking-free behaviour, with convergence at superlinear rates.     

Computational electro‐elasticity and magneto‐elasticity for quasi‐incompressible media immersed in free space

In this work, a mixed variational formulation to simulate quasi‐incompressible electro‐active or magneto‐active polymers immersed in the surrounding free space is presented. A novel domain decomposition is used to disconnect the primary coupled problem and the arbitrary free‐space mesh update problem. Exploiting this decomposition, we describe a block‐iterative approach to solving the linearised multiphysics problem, and a physically and geometrically based, three‐parameter method to update the free space mesh. Several application‐driven example problems are implemented to demonstrate the robustness of the mixed formulation for both electro‐elastic and magneto‐elastic problems involving both finite deformations and quasi‐incompressible media. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A systematic construction of B‐bar functions for linear and non‐linear mixed‐enhanced finite elements for plane elasticity problems

In a previous paper a modified Hu–Washizu variational formulation has been used to derive an accurate four node plane strain/stress finite element denoted QE2. For the mixed element QE2 two enhanced strain terms are used and the assumed stresses satisfy the equilibrium equations a priori for the linear elastic case. In this paper an alternative approach is discussed. The new formulation leads to the same accuracy for linear elastic problems as the QE2 element; however it turns out to be more efficient in numerical simulations, especially for large deformation problems. Using orthogonal stress and strain functions we derive B̄ functions which avoid numerical inversion of matrices. The B̄ ‐strain matrix is sparse and has the same structure as the strain matrix B obtained from a compatible displacement field. The implementation of the derived mixed element is basically the same as the one for a compatible displacement element. The only difference is that we have to compute a B̄ ‐strain matrix instead of the standard B ‐matrix. Accordingly, existing subroutines for a compatible displacement element can be easily changed to obtain the mixed‐enhanced finite element which yields a higher accuracy than the Q4 and QM6 elements. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A unified 3D‐based technique for plate bending analysis using scaled boundary finite element method

This paper presents a unified technique for solving the plate bending problems by extending the scaled boundary finite element method. The formulation is based on the three‐dimensional governing equation without enforcing the kinematics of plate theory. Only the in‐plane dimensions are discretised into finite elements. Any two‐dimensional displacement‐based elements can be employed. The solution along the thickness is expressed analytically by using a matrix function. The proposed technique is consistent with the three‐dimensional theory and applicable to both thick and thin plates without exhibiting the numerical locking phenomenon. Moreover, the use of higher order spectral elements allows the proposed technique to better represent curved boundaries and to achieve high accuracy and fast convergence. Numerical examples of various plate structures with different thickness‐to‐length ratios demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of the proposed technique. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient and accurate multilayer solid‐shell element: non‐linear materials at finite strain

We present in this paper an efficient and accurate low‐order solid‐shell element formulation for analyses of large deformable multilayer shell structures with non‐linear materials. The element has only displacement degrees of freedom (dofs), and an optimal number of enhancing assumed strain (EAS) parameters to pass the patch tests (both membrane and out‐of‐plane bending) and to remedy volumetric locking. Based on the mixed Fraeijs de Veubeke‐Hu‐Washizu (FHW) variational principle, the in‐plane and out‐of‐plane bending behaviours are improved and the locking associated with (nearly) incompressible materials is avoided via a new efficient enhancement of strain tensor. Shear locking and curvature thickness locking are resolved effectively by using the assumed natural strain (ANS) method. Two non‐linear 3‐D constitutive models (Mooney–Rivlin material and hyperelastoplastic material at finite strain) are applied directly without requiring the enforcement of the plane‐stress assumption. In particular, we give a simple derivation for the hyperelastoplastic model using spectral representations. In addition, the present element has a well‐defined lumped mass matrix, and provides double‐side contact surfaces for shell contact problems. With the dynamics referred to a fixed inertial frame, the present element can be used to analyse multilayer shell structures undergoing large overall motion. Numerical examples involving static analyses and implicit/explicit dynamic analyses of multilayer shell structures with both material and geometric non‐linearities are presented, and compared with existing results obtained from other shell elements and from a meshless method. It is shown that elements that did not pass the out‐of‐plane bending patch test could not provide accurate results, as compared to the present element formulation, which passed the out‐of‐plane bending patch test. The present element proves to be versatile and efficient in the modelling and analyses of general non‐linear composite multilayer shell structures. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A mixed finite element formulation for non-linear analysis of plane problems

Based on the incremental non-linear theory of solid bodies and the Hellinger-Reissncr principle, a mixed updated Lagrangian formulation of the large displacement motion of solid bodies is derived, and an associated mixed finite element model is developed. The model contains the displacements and stresses as the nodal degrees of freedom. The model is used for the large deformation elasto-plastic analysis of plane problems. In solving non-linear problems, the Newton-Raphson method with arc-length control is adopted to trace the post-buckling response. The computational steps to calculate the elasto-plastic stress increments at Gauss points in the elasto-plastic analysis by the present mixed model are described in detail. Numerical results are presented and compared with those of the displacement model and existing solutions to show the accuracy of the present mixed model in the large deformation elasto-plastic analysis of plane problems.     

P1‐nonconforming quadrilateral finite element for topology optimization

This investigation focuses on an alternative approach to topology optimization problems involving incompressible materials using the P1‐nonconforming finite element. Instead of using the mixed displacement‐pressure formulation, a pure displacement‐based approach can be employed for finite element formulation owing to the Poisson locking‐free property of the P1‐nonconforming element. Moreover, because the P1‐nonconforming element has linear shape functions that are defined at element vertices, it has considerably fewer degrees of freedom than other quadrilateral nonconforming elements and its implementation is as simple as that of the conforming bilinear element. Various problems dealing with incompressible materials and pressure‐loaded structures found in published works are solved to verify the applicability of the proposed method. The application of the method is extended to the optimal design of fluid channels in the Stokes flow. This is done by expressing pressure in terms of volumetric strain rates and developing a velocity‐field‐only finite element formulation. The optimization results obtained from all the problems considered in this study are in close agreement with those found in the literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extended rotation‐free plate and beam elements with shear deformation effects

This paper describes a methodology for extending rotation‐free plate and beam elements to accounting for transverse shear deformation effects. The ingredients for the element formulation are a Hu–Washizu‐type mixed functional, a linear interpolation for the deflection and the shear angles over standard finite elements and a finite volume approach for computing the bending moments and the curvatures over a patch of elements. As a first application of the general procedure, we present an extension of the three‐noded rotation‐free basic plate triangle (BPT) originally developed for thin plate analysis to account for shear deformation effects of relevance for thick plates and composite‐laminated plates. The nodal deflection degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the original BPT element are enhanced with the two shear deformation angles. This allows to compute the bending and shear deformation energies leading to a simple triangular plate element with three DOFs per node (termed BPT+ element). For the thin plate case, the shear angles vanish and the element reproduces the good behaviour of the original thin BPT element. As a consequence the element is applicable to thick and thin plate situations without exhibiting shear locking effects. The numerical solution for the thick case can be found iteratively starting from the deflection values for the Kirchhoff theory using the original thin BPT element. A two‐noded rotation‐free beam element termed CCB+ applicable to slender and thick beams is derived as a particular case of the plate formulation. The examples presented show the robustness and accuracy of the BPT+ and the CCB+ elements for thick and thin plate and beam problems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.