A displacement-based reference frame formulation for steady-state thermo-elasto-plastic material processes

A reference frame formulation for steady state thermo-elasto-plastic proces ses is presented. The displacement and history dependent response fields ap pear as the primary variables in this mixed formulation. Unlike displacemen t based Lagrangian formulations, our formulation does not require a transie nt analysis to simulate a steady state process and yields results that are free of numerical oscillations and which require considerably less computat ional effort. And unlike velocity based Eulerian methods, our formulation d oes not require free surface corrections or streamline integration algorith ms. A laser surface treatment process is simulated acid our results are ih agreement with those obtained from a computationally intensive transient La grangian analysis. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.