Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a simple HP-cloud method as an accurate meshless method for the geometrically nonlinear analysis of thick orthotropic plates of general shape. This method is used to investigate the effects of thickness, geometry of various shapes, boundary conditions and material properties on the large deformation analysis of Mindlin plates.

Nonlinear analysis of plates based on Mindlin theory is presented. The equations are derived by the Von-Karman assumption and total Lagrangian formulations. Newton-Raphson method is applied to achieve linear equations from nonlinear equations. Simple HP-cloud method is used for the construction of the shape functions based on Kronecker-δ properties, so the essential boundary conditions can be enforced directly. Shepard function is utilized for a partition of unity and complete polynomial is used as an enrichment function.

The suitability and efficiency of the simple HP-cloud method for the geometrically nonlinear analysis of thin and moderately thick plates is studied for the first time. Large displacement analysis of various shapes of plates, rectangular, skew, trapezoidal, circular, hexagonal and triangular with different boundary conditions subjected to distributed loading are considered.

This paper shows that the simple HP-cloud method is well suited for the large deformation analysis of Mindlin plates with various geometries, because it uses a set of a few arbitrary nodes placed in a plate of general shape. Moreover the convergence rate of the proposed method is high and the cost of solving equations is low.

The meshfree node-based smoothed point interpolation method (NS-PIM) is extended to the forward and inversion analysis of a high gravelly soil core rock-fill dam during construction periods.

As one member of the meshfree methods, the NS-PIM has the advantages of “softer” stiffness and adaptability to large deformations which is quite indispensable for the stability analysis of rock-fill dams. In this work, the present method contains a reconstruction procedure to deal with the existence or nonexistence of the construction layers. After verifying the validity of the NS-PIM method for nonlinear elastic model during construction period, the convergence features of the NS-PIM and FEM methods are further investigated with different mesh schemes. Furthermore, the NS-PIM and FEM methods are applied for the forward analysis of a high gravelly soil core rock-fill dam and the convergence features under complex stress conditions are also studied using the rock-fill dam model. Finally, the NS-PIM method is used to calculate the Duncan–Chang parameters of the deep overburden under the high gravelly soil core rock-fill dam based on the back-propagation neural network method.

The results show that: the NS-PIM solution for construction analysis still possesses the property of upper bound solution even under complex stress conditions and can provide comparatively more conservative results for safety evaluation. Furthermore, it can be used to evaluate the accuracy of results and mesh quality together with the FEM solution which has the property of lower bound solution; the inversion analysis in this work provides a set of material parameters for the deep overburden under high rock-fill dam during construction period and the calculated results show good agreement with the measured displacement values and it is feasible to apply the NS-PIM to the forward and inversion analysis of high rock-fill dams on deep overburden during construction periods.

In further study, the feasibility of three-dimensional problems, elastic–plastic problems, contact problems and multipoint inversion can still be probed in the NS-PIM solution for the forward and inversion analysis of high rock-fill dams on deep overburden.

This paper introduced a method for the forward and inversion analysis of high rock-fill dams during construction period using the NS-PIM solution. The property of upper bound solution ensures that the NS-PIM can provide more conservative results for safety evaluation. The inversion analysis in this work provides a set of material parameters for the deep overburden under high rock-fill dam during construction periods.

First, the analysis from forward to inversion for high rock-fill dams during construction period using the NS-PIM solution is accomplished in this work. A procedure dealing with the existence or nonexistence of the construction layers is also developed for the construction analysis. Second, it is confirmed in this work that the NS-PIM still possesses the property of upper bound solution even under complex stress conditions (the forward analysis of high rock-fill dams during construction period). Thus, more conservative results can be provided for safety evaluation. Furthermore, it can be used to evaluate the accuracy of results and mesh quality together with the FEM solution which has the property of lower bound solution. Third, the calculated material parameters of the deep overburden in this work can be used for further studies of the high rock-fill dam.

This paper aims to present a new numerical model for geometric nonlinear analysis of thin-shell structures based on a combined finite-discrete element method (FDEM).

The model uses rotation-free, three-node triangular finite elements with exact formulation for large rotations, large displacements in conjunction with small strains.

The presented numerical results related to behaviour of arbitrary shaped thin shell structures under large rotations and large displacement are in a good agreement with reference solutions.

This paper presents new computationally efficient numerical model for geometric nonlinear analysis and prediction of the behaviour of thin-shell structures based on combined FDEM. The model is implemented into the open source FDEM package “Yfdem”, and is tested on simple benchmark problems.

This paper aims to analyze the stability of laminated shells subjected to axial loads or external pressure with considering various geometries and boundary conditions. The main aim of the present study is developing an efficient combined method which uses the advantages of different methods, such as finite element method (FEM) and isogeometric analysis (IGA), to achieve multipurpose targets. Two types of material including laminated composite and sandwich functionally graded material are considered.

A novel type of finite strip method called isogeometric B3-spline finite strip method (IG-SFSM) is used to solve the eigenvalue buckling problem. IG-SFSM uses B3-spline basis functions to interpolate the buckling displacements and mapping operations in the longitudinal direction of the strips, whereas the Lagrangian functions are used in transverse direction. The current presented IG-SFSM is formulated based on the degenerated shell method.

The buckling behavior of laminated shells is discussed by solving several examples corresponding to shells with various geometries, boundary conditions and material properties. The effects of mechanical and geometrical properties on critical loads of shells are investigated using the related results obtained by IG-SFSM.

This paper shows that the proposed IG-SFSM leads to the critical loads with an approved accuracy comparing with the same examples extracted from the literature. Moreover, it leads to a high level of convergence rate and low cost of solving the stability problems in comparison to the FEM.

Computational efficiency and reliability are clearly the most important requirements for the success of a meshless numerical technique. While the basic ideas of meshless techniques are simple and well understood, an effective meshless method is very difficult to develop. The efficiency depends on the proper choice of the interpolation scheme, numerical integration procedures and techniques of imposing the boundary conditions. These issues in the context of the method of finite spheres are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the capabilities of the generalized finite element method (GFEM) under the context of the geometrically nonlinear analysis. The effect of large displacements and deformations, typical of such analysis, induces a significant distortion of the element mesh, penalizing the quality of the standard finite element method approximation. The main concern here is to identify how the enrichment strategy from GFEM, that usually makes this method less susceptible to the mesh distortion, may be used under the total and updated Lagrangian formulations.

An existing computational environment that allows linear and nonlinear analysis, has been used to implement the analysis with geometric nonlinearity by GFEM, using different polynomial enrichments.

The geometrically nonlinear analysis using total and updated Lagrangian formulations are considered in GFEM. Classical problems are numerically simulated and the accuracy and robustness of the GFEM are highlighted.

This study shows a novel study about GFEM analysis using a complete polynomial space to enrich the approximation of the geometrically nonlinear analysis adopting the total and updated Lagrangian formulations. This strategy guarantees the good precision of the analysis for higher level of mesh distortion in the case of the total Lagrangian formulation. On the other hand, in the updated Lagrangian approach, the need of updating the degrees of freedom during the incremental and iterative solution are for the first time identified and discussed here.

The purpose of this paper is devoted to present an accurate assessment for determine natural frequencies for uniform and non-uniform Euler-Bernoulli beams and frames by an adaptive generalized finite element method (GFEM). The present paper concentrates on developing the C1 element of the adaptive GFEM for vibration analysis of Euler-Bernoulli beams and frames.

The variational problem of free vibration is formulated and the main aspects of the adaptive GFEM are presented and discussed. The efficiency and convergence of the proposed method in vibration analysis of uniform and non-uniform Euler-Bernoulli beams are checked. The application of this technique in a frame is also presented.

The present paper concentrates on developing the C1 element of the adaptive GFEM for vibration analysis of Euler-Bernoulli beams and frames. The GFEM, which was conceived on the basis of the partition of unity method, allows the inclusion of enrichment functions that contain a priori knowledge about the fundamental solution of the governing differential equation. The proposed enrichment functions are dependent on the geometric and mechanical properties of the element. This approach converges very fast and is able to approximate the frequency related to any vibration mode.

The main contribution of the present study consisted in proposing an adaptive GFEM for vibration analysis of Euler-Bernoulli uniform and non-uniform beams and frames. The GFEM results were compared with those obtained by the h and p-versions of FEM and the c-version of the CEM. The adaptive GFEM has shown to be efficient in the vibration analysis of beams and has indicated that it can be applied even for a coarse discretization scheme in complex practical problems.

The penalty boundary method (PBM) is a new method for performing finite element analysis using a regular overlapping mesh that does not have to coincide with the geometric boundaries. The PBM uses CAD solid geometry directly to generate element matrix equations and apply boundary conditions, removing the need for a separate representation of the geometry. The preliminary results show that the PBM can significantly reduce the time and manual intervention required to prepare finite element models and perform analyses. This paper presents the PBM approach for representing the problem domain on an overlapping mesh that results in a more traditional method for applying natural boundary conditions.

The study aims to highlight the behaviour of one-dimensional and two-dimensional fin models under the natural room conditions, considering the different values of dimensionless Biot number (Bi). The effect of convection and radiation on the heat transfer process has also been demonstrated using the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) approach.

It is true that MLPG method is time-consuming and expensive in terms of man-hours, as it is in the developing stage, but with the advent of computationally fast new-generation computers, there is a big possibility of the development of MLPG software, which will not only reduce the computational time and cost but also enhance the accuracy and precision in the results. Bi values of 0.01 and 0.10 have been taken for the experimental investigation of one-dimensional and two-dimensional rectangular fin models. The numerical simulation results obtained by the analytical method, benchmark numerical method and the MLPG method for both the models have been compared with that of the experimental investigation results for validation and found to be in good agreement. Performance of the fin has also been demonstrated.

The experimental and numerical investigations have been conducted for one-dimensional and two-dimensional linear and nonlinear fin models of rectangular shape. MLPG is used as a potential numerical method. Effect of radiation is also, implemented successfully. Results are found to be in good agreement with analytical solution, when one-dimensional steady problem is solved; however, two-dimensional results obtained by the MLPG method are compared with that of the finite element method and found that the proposed method is as accurate as the established method. It is also found that for higher Bi, the one-dimensional model is not appropriate, as it does not demonstrate the appreciated error; hence, a two-dimensional model is required to predict the performance of a fin. Radiative fin illustrates more heat transfer than the pure convective fin. The performance parameters show that as the Bi increases, the performance of fin decreases because of high thermal resistance.

Though, best of the efforts have been put to showcase the behaviour of one-dimensional and two-dimensional fins under nonlinear conditions, at different Bi values, yet lot more is to be demonstrated. Nonlinearity, in the present paper, is exhibited by using the thermal and material properties as the function of temperature, but can be further demonstrated with their dependency on the area. Additionally, this paper can be made more elaborative by extending the research for transient problems, with different fin profiles. Natural convection model is adopted in the present study but it can also be studied by using forced convection model.

Fins are the most commonly used medium to enhance heat transfer from a hot primary surface. Heat transfer in its natural condition is nonlinear and hence been demonstrated. The outcome is practically viable, as it is applicable at large to the broad areas like automobile, aerospace and electronic and electrical devices.

As per the literature survey, lot of work has been done on fins using different numerical methods; but to the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is first in the area of nonlinear heat transfer of fins using dimensionless Bi by the truly meshfree MLPG method.

The problems of shear flexible beams are analyzed by the MLPG method based on a locking‐free weak formulation. In order for the weak formulation to be locking‐free, the numerical characteristics of the variational functional for a shear flexible beam, in the thin beam limit, are discussed. Based on these discussions a locking‐free local symmetric weak form is derived by changing the set of two dependent variables in governing equations from that of transverse displacement and total rotation to the set of transverse displacement and transverse shear strain. For the interpolation of the chosen set of dependent variables (i.e. transverse displacement and transverse shear strain) in the locking‐free local symmetric weak form, the recently proposed generalized moving least squares (GMLS) interpolation scheme is utilized, in order to introduce the derivative of the transverse displacement as an additional nodal degree of freedom, independent of the nodal transverse displacement. Through numerical examples, convergence tests are performed. To identify the locking‐free nature of the proposed method, problems of shear flexible beams in the thick beam limit and in the thin beam limit are analyzed, and the numerical results are compared with analytical solutions. The potential of using the truly meshless local Petrov‐Galerkin (MLPG) method is established as a new paradigm in totally locking‐free computational analyses of shear flexible plates and shells.