Combined Hybrid Finite Element Method Applied in Elastic Thermal Stress Problem

Abstract

In view of combinative stability, combinative variational principle based on domain decomposition for elastic thermal stress problem is constructed with the merits of avoiding Lax–Babuska–Brezzi (LBB) conditions. Compared with the principle of elasticity problem, new load items from thermal are involved. In addition, combined hybrid finite element is proposed to discretize the new principle and to formulate element stiffness matrix. Energy compatibility is introduced not only to simplify the variational principle and the corresponding element stiffness matrix but also to reduce the error of finite element solutions. On cuboid element, the energy compatible stress mode is given explicitly. The numerical results indicate that combined hybrid element with eight nodes can give almost the same computing accuracy of displacement and better computing accuracy of stress compared with cuboid element with 20 nodes, is not sensitive to mesh distortion and can circumvent Poisson-locking phenomenon.