An error on the constitutive law, called dissipation error, is used to measure and to enhance the quality of finite element computations of plastic structures whose behaviour is described by internal variables. This measure takes into account all the classical sources of error involved in the computation: the space discretization (the mesh), the time discretization and the iterative technique used to solve the nonlinear discrete problem. To quantify more specifically the contribution of these three error sources to the error, three error indicators are calculated: a space indicator, a time indicator and an iteration indicator. Then, the error and the three indicators are used in an adaptive strategy: the space indicator allows us to adapt the mesh, the time indicator to adapt the time discretization and the iteration indicator makes it possible to limit the number of iterations of the global iterative algorithm.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £85 +P&P)