Finite volume method for stress analysis in complex domains

Abstract

Abstract In this paper an alternative to the widely used finite element method for the solution of stress analysis problems is presented. The method employs a finite volume discretization of solid body equilibrium equation written in an integral form with displacement vector as a dependent variable in conjunction with an efficient iterative procedure for the solution of resulting algebraic equations. It uses unstructured meshes with arbitrary cell topology, which greatly facilitates the solution domain discretization. The method is verified on a number of test cases and it is shown to possess all the geometrical flexibility of the finite element methods and the simplicity and efficiency of the finite volume methods.