Application of Edge-based element to Mixed Rigid Plastic FEM and Its Effectiveness

Abstract

In the rigid plastic finite element method (RPFEM) the locking phenomenon often arises when three node triangular (T3) elements are used. To avoid the problem, the node-based element can be applied, but the application of the node-based element does not always give a correct failure mechanism. Therefore, we apply the edge-based element to the mixed RPFEM and evaluate its validity. We solve four typical problems and compare the results of the T3 element, the edge-based element and the node-based element. It turns out that the mixed RPFEM with the edge-based element gives valid results except the problem under a strong restriction condition.