Polyhedral smoothed finite element method for thermoelastic analysis

Abstract

Thermoelastic analysis by means of three-dimensional polyhedral elements based on the Smoothed Finite elements method (S-FEM), for example nodal Cell-based S-FEM (CS-FEM), Node-based S-FEM (NS-FEM), and Edge-based S-FEM (ES-FEM), was studied. S-FEM allows implicit shape functions, making it possible to construct shape functions of S-FEM based polyhedral elements in a straightforward manner. The performance of S-FEM based polyhedral elements was compared with one another and with the conventional finite elements including hexahedral and tetrahedral element. Numerical examples show that the polyhedral elements by means of CS-FEM and ES-FEM provide better accuracy and convergence rate than conventional hexahedral finite elements, while the polyhedral elements by means of NS-FEM leads to spurious mode.