Nonlinear cable computations using high‐order solid elements with hp‐adaptive refinement for anisotropic plasticity

Abstract

AbstractCables are slender structural elements, that are found in many engineering structures and are exposed to large displacements while experiencing small or large local strains during their installation or in dynamic environments. To address the complexity of their inner structure, an effective material model with anisotropic properties in the elastic and elastoplastic domain is utilized, allowing for a simplified representation that overcomes numerical challenges associated with a fully resolved model. This article focuses on enhancing the representation of local discontinuities arising from the plastic front using ‐refinement. The described workflow is applied to a perforated plate benchmark example and a cable subjected to torsion. Results indicate that the ‐refinement achieves a fast convergence and on average uses fewer degrees of freedom to achieve similar accuracy as compared to pure h‐refinement or pure p‐refinement.