Efficient elasto-plastic analysis via an adaptive finite element-boundary element coupling method

Abstract

This paper presents an adaptive FEM-BEM coupling method for elasto-plastic analysis. The proposed method is valid for both two-and three-dimensional applications. The method takes care of the evolution of the elastic and plastic regions and avoids some limitations of the standard FEM-BEM coupling approaches. It estimates the FEM and BEM sub-domains and automatically generates/adapts the FEM and BEM meshes/sub-domains, according to the state of computation. The method eliminates the cumbersome trial and error process in the identification of the FEM and BEM sub-domains in the standard FEM-BEM coupling approaches. An example application confirms the effectiveness of the proposed method.

An adaptive domain decomposition coupled finite element–boundary element method for solving problems in elasto‐plasticity

“…It estimates the FEM and BEM sub-domains and automatically generates/adapts the FEM and BEM meshes/sub-domains, according to the state of computation. The adaptive coupling method enhances those presented in [33,38,39] and improves the estimation of regions where plastic material behavior is going to develop (regions where the FEM is employed). In the presence of plastic deformations in the FEM region, the solution there is obtained via an iterative scheme.…”

“…[33,38,39] References [33,38,39] presented adaptive FEM-BEM coupling methods for solving problems in elasto-plasticity. The algorithms follow linear hypothetical elastic computations at levels of loading specified by the user.…”

“…A coupled FEM-BEM stress analysis involving elasto-plastic deformations is then conducted. In order to determine the pseudo value of the material yield strength, an energy balance between the hypothetical elastic and elasto-plastic calculations was assumed [33,38,39] …”

“…Compared with the adaptive coupling method of [33,38,39], the presented method involves additional FEM or BEM elastic iterations. These elastic iterations involved in estimation of the FEM and BEM sub-domains are more than rewarded by an improved estimate of the FEM and BEM sub-domains provided by the proposed adaptive coupling method.…”

“…In order to make the present article self-contained, Section 2 briefly summarizes the symmetric Galerkin and data-sparse BEM in linear elasticity, FEM in elasto-plasticity, conventional (direct) and interface relaxation FEM-BEM coupling equations, and a brief description of the adaptive coupling algorithms presented in [33,38,39]. Section 3 presents the proposed adaptive FEM-BEM coupling method for elasto-plastic analysis.…”