AN ENERGY-MOMENTUM CONSERVING ALGORITHM FOR NONLINEAR TRANSIENT ANALYSIS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF HYBRID ELEMENTS

This work deals with the formulation and implementation of an energy-momentum conserving algorithm for conducting the nonlinear transient analysis of structures, within the framework of stress-based hybrid elements. Hybrid elements, which are based on a two-field variational formulation, are much less susceptible to locking than conventional displacement-based elements within the static framework. We show that this advantage carries over to the transient case, so that not only are the solutions obtained more accurate, but they are obtained in fewer iterations. We demonstrate the efficacy of the algorithm on a wide range of problems such as ones involving dynamic buckling, complicated three-dimensional motions, et cetera.