A 3-DIMENSIONAL STRESS RECOVERY PROCEDURE FOR COMPOSITE-MATERIALS

A three-dimensional stress recovery procedure is described in this pap er. As usual, in the finite element method, we suppose to know a good approximation of the nodal values of the displacements; starting from the nodal displacements, we evaluate the strain components at Gauss po ints of a 27-node prismatic element, then the stress components at the same points. Stresses are finally projected to corner nodes with a sm oothing procedure. The repeated application of such a procedure to a s et of adjacent elements allows the construction of the stress field in a finite region of any deformed body. The proposed method finds its m ost natural application in the field of composite materials as shown i n the numerical applications which reveal a good concordance of result s with an equivalent three-dimensional finite element analysis. (C) 19 98 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.