A Hybridized Mixed Approach for Efficient Stress Prediction in a Layerwise Plate Model

Building upon recent works devoted to the development of a stress-based layerwise model for multilayered plates, we explore an alternative finite-element discretization to the conventional displacement-based finite-element method. We rely on a mixed finite-element approach where both stresses and di...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lucille Salha, Jeremy Bleyer, Karam Sab, Joanna Bodgi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-05-01
Series:Mathematics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/10/1711
Description
Summary:Building upon recent works devoted to the development of a stress-based layerwise model for multilayered plates, we explore an alternative finite-element discretization to the conventional displacement-based finite-element method. We rely on a mixed finite-element approach where both stresses and displacements are interpolated. Since conforming stress-based finite-elements ensuring traction continuity are difficult to construct, we consider a hybridization strategy in which traction continuity is relaxed by the introduction of an additional displacement-like Lagrange multiplier defined on the element facets. Such a strategy offers the advantage of uncoupling many degrees of freedom so that static condensation can be performed at the element level, yielding a much smaller final system to solve. Illustrative applications demonstrate that the proposed mixed approach is free from any shear-locking in the thin plate limit and is more accurate than a displacement approach for the same number of degrees of freedom. As a result, this method can be used to capture efficiently strong intra- and inter-laminar stress variations near free-edges or cracks.
ISSN:2227-7390