Solving the hourglass instability problem using rare mesh variation-difference schemes

Abstract

The hourglass instability effect is characteristic of the Wilkins explicit difference scheme or similar schemes based on two-dimensional 4-node or three-dimensional 8-node finite elements with one integration point in the element. The hourglass effect is absent in schemes with cells in the form of simplexes (triangles in two-dimensional case, tetrahedrons in three-dimensional case). But they have another well-known drawback - slow convergence. One of the authors proposed a rare mesh scheme, in which elements in the form of a tetrahedron are located one at a time in the centers of the cells of a hexahedral grid. This scheme showed the absence “hourglass” effect and other drawbacks with high efficiency. This approach was further developed for solving 2D and 3D problems.