Calibration of a class of non‐linear viscoelasticity models with sensitivity assessment based on duality

The calibration of constitutive models is based on the solution of an optimization problem, whereby the sought parameter values minimize an objective function that measures the discrepancy between experimental observations and the corresponding simulated response. By the introduction of an appropriate adjoint problem, the resulting formulation becomes well suited for a gradient‐based optimization scheme. A class of viscoelastic models is studied, where a discontinuous Galerkin method is used to integrate the governing evolution equation in time. A practical solution algorithm, which utilizes the time‐flow structure of the underlying evolution equation, is presented. Based on the proposed formulation it is convenient to estimate the sensitivity of the calibrated parameters with respect to measurement noise. The sensitivity is computed using a dual method, which compares favourably with the conventional primal method. The strategy is applied to a viscoelasticity model using experimental data from a uniaxial compression test. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.