Elastoplastic Analysis of Metallic Parts Employing a Meshless Method

Area of Science:

• Mechanical Engineering
• Computational Mechanics
• Materials Science

Background:

• Finite element methods (FEM) are widely used for elastoplastic analysis but have limitations.
• There is an increasing need for meshless methods in computational mechanics.
• Meshless approaches offer advantages in handling complex geometries and large deformations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a meshless solution for 2D elastoplastic analysis of metal components.
• To assess the performance of the proposed method under various loading conditions.
• To compare the effectiveness of different weight functions in the meshless approach.

Main Methods:

• Developed a meshless solution based on the locally symmetric weak form of governing elastoplastic integral equations.
• Employed small deformation rate independent associative flow theory for elastoplastic constitutive relationships.
• Implemented a solution algorithm capable of handling loading, unloading, and reverse loading scenarios.
• Utilized Gaussian and spline weight functions for numerical computations.

Main Results:

• The proposed meshless solution demonstrated robustness and accuracy in elastoplastic analysis of metallic parts.
• The method successfully handled loading, unloading, and reverse loading conditions.
• Numerical results indicated that the Gaussian weight function provided superior robustness compared to the spline weight function.

Conclusions:

• A reliable meshless solution for 2D elastoplastic analysis of metal components has been presented.
• The meshless approach offers a viable alternative to FEM for such problems.
• Gaussian weight functions are recommended for enhanced robustness in this meshless elastoplastic analysis.