C^1 natural element method for strain gradient linear elasticity and its application to microstructures

C^1 natural element method （C^1 NEM） is applied to strain gradient linear elasticity, and size effects on mi crostructures are analyzed. The shape functions in C^1 NEM are built upon the natural neighbor interpolation （NNI）, with interpolation realized to nodal function and nodal gradient values, so that the essential boundary conditions （EBCs） can be imposed directly in a Galerkin scheme for partial differential equations （PDEs）. In the present paper, C^1 NEM for strain gradient linear elasticity is constructed, and sev- eral typical examples which have analytical solutions are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the constructed method. In its application to microstructures, the size effects of bending stiffness and stress concentration factor （SCF） are studied for microspeciem and microgripper, respectively. It is observed that the size effects become rather strong when the width of spring for microgripper, the radius of circular perforation and the long axis of elliptical perforation for microspeciem come close to the material characteristic length scales. For the U-shaped notch, the size effects decline obviously with increasing notch radius, and decline mildly with increasing length of notch.

Kinematic Shakedown Analysis for Strain-Hardening Plates with the C1 Nodal Natural Element Method

This paper proposes a novel numerical solution approach for the kinematic shakedown analysis of strain-hardening thin plates using the C^(1)nodal natural element method(C^(1)nodal NEM).Based on Koiter’s theorem and the von Mises and two-surface yield criteria,a nonlinear mathematical programming formulation is constructed for the kinematic shakedown analysis of strain-hardening thin plates,and the C^(1)nodal NEM is adopted for discretization.Additionally,König’s theory is used to deal with time integration by treating the generalized plastic strain increment at each load vertex.A direct iterative method is developed to linearize and solve this formulation by modifying the relevant objective function and equality constraints at each iteration.Kinematic shakedown load factors are directly calculated in a monotonically converging manner.Numerical examples validate the accuracy and convergence of the developed method and illustrate the influences of limited and unlimited strain-hardening models on the kinematic shakedown load factors of thin square and circular plates.

Upper Bound Shakedown Analysis of Plates Utilizing the C^(1) Natural Element Method

This paper proposes a numerical solution method for upper bound shakedown analysis of perfectly elasto-plastic thin plates by employing the C^(1) natural element method.Based on the Koiter’s theorem and von Mises yield criterion,the nonlinear mathematical programming formulation for upper bound shakedown analysis of thin plates is established.In this formulation,the trail function of residual displacement increment is approximated by using the C^(1) shape functions,the plastic incompressibility condition is satisfied by introducing a constant matrix in the objective function,and the time integration is resolved by using the Konig’s technique.Meanwhile,the objective function is linearized by distinguishing the non-plastic integral points from the plastic integral points and revising the objective function and associated equality constraints at each iteration.Finally,the upper bound shakedown load multipliers of thin plates are obtained by direct iterative and monotone convergence processes.Several benchmark examples verify the good precision and fast convergence of this proposed method.

Application of a p-version curved C^(1)finite element based on the nonlocal Kirchhoff plate theory to the vibration analysis of irregularly shaped nanoplates

Nanoplates have been widely used as elementary components for ultrasensitive and ultrafine resolution applications in the field of nano-electro-mechanical systems because of their potentially remarkable mechanical properties.The accurate analysis of their mechanical behavior is currently of particular interest in the function design and reliability analysis of nano-scaled devices.To examine the size-dependent bending and vibration behavior of nanoplates with curvilinear and irregular shapes,a new p-version curved C^(1)finite element is formulated in the framework of the nonlocal Kirchhoff plate model.This newly developed element not only enables an accurate geometry representation and easy mesh generation of curvilinear domains but also overcomes the difficulty of imposing C^(1)conformity required by the nonlocal Kirchhoff plate model,particularly on the curvilinear inter-element boundaries.Numerical examples show that this element can produce an exponential rate of convergence even when curved elements are used in the domain discretization.Vast numerical results are presented for nanoplates with various geometric shapes,including rectangular,circular,elliptic,annular,and sectorial.The high accuracy of the present element is verified by comparing the obtained results with analytical and numerical results in the literature.Additionally,a comprehensive parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the influences of nonlocal parameters,plate dimensions,and boundary conditions on the nonlocal behavior of nanoplates.The present element can be envisaged to allow large-scale mechanical simulations of nanoplates,with a guarantee of accuracy and efficiency.

C^1 conforming quadrilateral finite elements with complete secondorder derivatives on vertices and its application to Kirchhoff plates

The classical problem of the construction of C^1 conforming single-patch quadrilateral finite elements has been solved in this investigation by using the blending function interpolation method.In order to achieve the C^1 conformity on the interfaces of quadrilateral elements,complete second-order derivatives are used at the element vertices,and the information of geometrical mapping is also considered into the construction of shape functions.It is found that the shape functions and the polynomial spaces of the present elements vary with element shapes.However,the developed quadrilateral elements are at least third order for general quadrilateral shapes and fifth order for rectangular shapes.Therefore,very fast convergence can be achieved.A promising feature of the present elements is that they can be used in cooperation with those high-precision rectangular and triangular elements.Since the present elements are over conforming on element vertices,an approach for handling problems of material discontinuity is also proposed.Numerical examples of Kirchhoff plates are employed to demonstrate the computational performance of the present elements.

薄板塑性极限分析的C^(1)自然单元法

采用C^(1)自然单元法研究了不同工况下圆形、菱形、等边多边形薄板的极限承载力。根据薄板极限上限分析的迭代求解格式,构造出了满足平衡方程和边界条件的广义应力场,并由极限下限定理和得到的广义应力场,建立了求解薄板结构极限下限载荷乘子的迭代格式。提出的数值方法克服了极限下限定理中约束条件的强非线性,降低了下限分析的计算规模,具有易于程序实现的优点。该数值方法与极限上限分析方法相结合可以有效估算出薄板结构极限载荷的范围。数值算例表明,提出的求解薄板结构上、下限载荷的方法是有效的,具有较高的计算精度和较快的收敛性。