Numerical limit and shakedown analysis method for kinematic hardening structure made of arbitrary inhomogeneous material

Abstract

The prediction of structure’s ultimate load has a lot of practical applications in composite structure. In the present work, limit and shakedown load of structure made from arbitrary inhomogeneous material was predicted by a novel solution algorithm named Back Stress Iteration Method, where material’s kinematic hardening behavior is involved as well. Firstly, details about the proposed algorithm were introduced. Basis reduction method was employed as framework and its advantage in computational efficiency is inherited. Secondly, the influence of inhomogeneous kinematic hardening was solved by a new invented Back Stress Iteration process. Then, three examples with increasing complexity were investigated numerically for validation purpose. The results were discussed intensively with respect to the accuracy, the effect of inhomogeneity and the inhomogeneous kinematic hardening behavior to verify the rationality of the proposed method. At last, the paper was summarized and conclusions were drawn. The proposed method is promising to provide a powerful tool for the accurate prediction of arbitrary inhomogeneous structure’s load-bearing capacity, such is applicable to many kinds of composite structures.