F‐bar aided edge‐based smoothed finite element method using tetrahedral elements for finite deformation analysisof nearly incompressible solids

Abstract

Summary A new smoothed finite element method (S‐FEM) with tetrahedral elements for finite strain analysis of nearly incompressible solids is proposed. The proposed method is basically a combination of the F‐bar method and edge‐based S‐FEM with tetrahedral elements (ES‐FEM‐T4) and is named ‘F‐barES‐FEM‐T4’. F‐barES‐FEM‐T4 inherits the accuracy and shear locking‐free property of ES‐FEM‐T4. At the same time, it also inherits the volumetric locking‐free property of the F‐bar method. The isovolumetric part of the deformation gradient ( F iso ) is derived from the F of ES‐FEM‐T4, whereas the volumetric part ( F vol ) is derived from the cyclic smoothing of J (=det( F )) between elements and nodes. Some demonstration analyses confirm that F‐barES‐FEM‐T4 with a sufficient number of cyclic smoothings suppresses the pressure oscillation in nearly incompressible materials successfully with no increase in DOF. Moreover, they reveal that our method is capable of relaxing the corner locking issue arising at the corner in the cylinder barreling analysis. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.