An Iterative Approach to Dynamic Elastic-Plastic Analysis

The step-by-step analysis of structures constituted by elastic-plastic finite elements, subjected to an assigned loading history, is here considered. The structure may possess dynamic and/or not dynamic degrees-of-freedom. As it is well-known, at each step of analysis the solution of a linear complementarity problem is required. An iterative method devoted to solving the relevant linear complementarity problem is presented. It is based on the recursive solution of a linear complementarity, problem in which the constraint matrix is block-diagonal and deduced from the matrix of the original linear complementarity problem. The convergence of the procedure is also proved. Some particular cases are examined. Several numerical applications conclude the paper.