The concept of the finite-element procedure may be dated back to 1943 when Courant approximated the warping function linearly in each of an assemblage of triangular elements to the St. Venant torsion problem and proceeded to formulate the problem using the principle of minimum potential energy. Similar ideas were used later by several investigators to obtain the approximate solutions to certain boundary-value problems. It was Clough who first introduced the term “finite elements” in the study of plane elasticity problems. The equivalence of this method with the well-known Ritz method was established at a later date, which made it possible to extend the applications to a broad spectrum of problems for which a variational formulation is possible. Since then numerous studies have been reported on the theory and applications of the finite-element method. In this and next chapters the finite-element formulations necessary for the deformation analysis of metal-forming processes are presented. For hot forming processes, heat transfer analysis should also be carried out as well as deformation analysis. Discretization for temperature calculations and coupling of heat transfer and deformation are discussed in Chap. 12. More detailed descriptions of the method in general and the solution techniques can be found in References [3-5], in addition to the books on the finite-element method listed in Chap. 1. The path to the solution of a problem formulated in finite-element form is described in Chap. 1 (Section 1.2). Discretization of a problem consists of the following steps: (1) describing the element, (2) setting up the element equation, and (3) assembling the element equations. Numerical analysis techniques are then applied for obtaining the solution of the global equations. The basis of the element equations and the assembling into global equations is derived in Chap. 5. The solution satisfying eq. (5.20) is obtained from the admissible velocity fields that are constructed by introducing the shape function in such a way that a continuous velocity field over each element can be denned uniquely in terms of velocities of associated nodal points.
