ADAPTIVE MESH REFINEMENT FOR 2-DIMENSIONAL FINITE-ELEMENT STRESS-ANALYSIS

An adaptive procedure in finite element analysis is presented for two- dimensional plane stress strain and axisymmetric problems based on a m odified strategy for h-refinement of meshes with quadrilateral and oth er shaped elements. The strategy suggests refinement levels to which a particular element has to be refined to obtain an acceptable level of accuracy in a single trial. A new refinement algorithm is presented f or computer implementation. The use of a relational database managemen t system for software development as an alternative to conventional da ta structures is illustrated. In the h-p refinement strategy used in t his work, the adaptive h-refinement is followed by uniform p-refinemen t. The efficiency of the h-p refinement procedures and the software ar e illustrated through a Dumber of examples.