† Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0072, U.S.A.
‡ National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH 44135-3191, U.S.A.
Abstract:
A new and simple method of finite-element grid improvement is presented. The objective is to improve the accuracy of the analysis. The procedure is based on a minimization of the trace of the stiffness matrix. For a broad class of problems this minimization is seen to be equivalent to minimizing the potential energy. The method is illustrated with the classical tapered bar problem examined earlier by Prager and Masur. Identical results are obtained.