A generalized beta finite element method with coupled smoothing techniques for solid mechanics

Abstract

This paper presents a generalized smoothing techniques based beta finite element method (βFEM) to improve the performance of standard FEM and the existing smoothed finite element methods (S-FEM) in solid mechanics. As we know, the edge-based (for 2D) or face-based (for 3D) strain smoothing techniques can bring much more accurate solutions than standard FEM, and offer lower bounds for force driven problems. The node-based smoothing technique with “overly-soft” feature, on the other hand has a unique property of producing upper bound solutions. This work proposes a novel generalized S-FEM with the smoothing domains generated based on both edges/faces and nodes. An adjustable parameter β is introduced to control the ratio of the area of edge/face-based and node-based smoothing domains. It is found that nearly exact solutions in strain energy can be obtained by tuning the parameter, making use of the important property that the exact solution is bonded by the solutions of NS-FEM and ES/FS-FEM. Standard patch tests are likewise satisfied. A number of numerical examples (static, dynamic, linear and nonlinear) have shown that the present βFEM method is found to be ultra-accurate, insensitive to mesh quality, temporal stable, capable of modeling complex geometry, immune from volumetric locking, etc.