Finite-Element Solution of Elastic-Plastic Boundary-Value Problems

It is demonstrated that elastic-plastic failure states may be captured in finite-element models by employing (1) the elastic-plastic material stiffness to form the global stiffness, (2) reduced/selective integration techniques to alleviate mesh “locking” due to incompressibility, and (3), in the case of symmetrical configurations, an imperfection in the form of a weak element.