Automated solution procedures for negotiating abrupt non‐linearities and branch points

In the inelastic stability analysis of plated structures, incremental‐iterative finite element methods sometimes encounter prohibitive solution difficulties in the vicinity of sharp limit points, branch points and other regions of abrupt non‐linearity. Presents an analysis system that attempts to trace the non‐linear response associated with these types of problems at minor computational cost. Proposes a semi‐heuristic method for automatic load incrementation, termed the adaptive arc‐length procedure. This procedure is capable of detecting abrupt non‐linearities and reducing the increment size prior to encountering iterative convergence difficulties. The adaptive arc‐length method is also capable of increasing the increment size rapidly in regions of near linear response. This strategy, combined with consistent linearization to obtain the updated tangent stiffness matrix in all iterative steps, and with the use of a “minimum residual displacement” constraint on the iterations, is found to be effective in avoiding solution difficulties in many types of severe non‐linear problems. However, additional procedures are necessary to negotiate branch points within the solution path, as well as to ameliorate convergence difficulties in certain situations. Presents a special algorithm, termed the bifurcation processor, which is effective for solving many of these types of problems. Discusses several example solutions to illustrate the performance of the resulting analysis system.