A Study on the Elastic Compensation Method for Design by Analysis Codes

In the Design by Analysis (DBA) codes, it is important to ensure that the integrity of the structures can be maintained under the various loadings. For this purpose, elastic analyses are not sufficient and generally, elastic-plastic analyses are necessary. However, elastic-plastic analyses are still costly, especially for three-dimensional complex components. To solve this problem, the Elastic Compensation Method (ECM) has been studied, in which a conservative plastic collapse load can be obtained based on the lower bound theorem. In this paper, this investigation, including application of the ECM for combined loadings and body forces has been summarized. Application of the method on a structure consisting of dissimilar materials is also discussed.