A Stabilized Mixed FEM for Viscoplastic Flow Analysis

A stabilized, mixed finite element method for viscoplastic flow analysis is presented. Preliminary results show promise for modeling steady-state bulk forming processes. In this work, the Ladyzenskaya-Babuska-Brezzi (LBB) condition is circumvented by adding mesh dependent terms (stabilization terms), which are functions of the residual of the Euler-Lagrange equations, to the usual Galerkin method. The stabilized formulation and applications to plastic flow problems are presented. Numerical experiments using the stabilization method show that the stabilized, mixed FEM is effective and efficient for non-linear steady forming problems.