Abstract

In this paper, we firstly introduce a nodal-integration-based finite element method. The method allows the use of first-order tetrahedral elements without suffering from the volumetric locking problem. The most important advantage of tetrahedral meshes is that they can be automatically generated for complex geometries using existing reliable meshing tools. The method is then applied to 3 types of applications. The first application is a large displacement, large strains elastic-plastic simulation on a notched specimen. The second application is an elastic-plastic bending problem. And the last example concerns the numerical simulation of the thermo-mechanical problem. In all the cases, the solution given by the nodal-integration-based FEM is compared to more classical FEM results.