Generalized B‐bar: unlocking multiple compliance modes of finite elements with stiff‐fiber anisotropy

Element locking is often seen in homogenized models of elastic fiber‐reinforced materials, and splitting the material compliance into two separate terms isolates troublesome strain modes. Once isolated, the locking modes can be addressed with tailored integration schemes or the opportune introduction of field variables. The canonical application of this approach is seen in the dilatational‐deviatoric split used to treat so‐called ‘volumetric locking’. In the present work, we invoke the spectral decomposition of the material compliance to provide a generalized split. Doing so naturally parses the response into six independent strain modes, with varying propensity for locking. This split can be used to generalize fundamental techniques, such as selective reduced integration and the B‐bar method. This broadened approach works to remedy locking suffered by lower order finite elements used to discretize troublesome materials. Applying these generalized methods to achieve the dilational‐deviatoric split is trivial. However, the compliance spectrum's ability to naturally isolate stiff material response modes makes it a uniquely valuable tool for use on homogenized anisotropic materials. Applying the split, defined by only the first compliance mode, has given rise to the generalized methods, which have proven effective in unlocking finite element models of anisotropic materials. In the present work, the generalization is broadened to treat more than one constrained mode. While treating six modes is equivalent to simple reduced integration techniques, up to five compliance modes are now separated for advantageous treatment. However, some attention must be paid to the stability of the resulting finite element stiffness matrices. We focus here on the treatment of two principal compliance modes. These ‘two‐mode’ applications of the generalized B‐bar method are shown to be a more robust default treatment of linear hexahedral elements than is provided by classical selective reduced integration. This is achieved with a negligible computational overhead. A framework for assessing element stability is delineated, and commonly arising instabilities are analyzed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.