Smoothed numerical manifold method with physical patch‐based smoothing domains for linear elasticity

Abstract

AbstractSmoothed finite element method with the node‐based strain smoothing domains (NS‐FEM) is remarkable for the upper‐bound feature and insensitivity to the volumetric locking. As a mesh‐based methodology, its application is limited by the burdensome meshing for which elements align with the physical domain. We extend the strain smoothing in NS‐FEM to the numerical manifold method (NMM) with unfitted meshes, and propose a novel methodology named physical patch‐based smoothed NMM. Benchmark problems demonstrate the optimal convergence, stability in term of the condition number, upper‐bound property, suppression of the volumetric locking, as well as the stress stability.