Friday, January 23, 2009, 2 PM
Olsson Hall 120

Infrastructure for Alternative Vehicle Fuels

Vinicius Arcaro

Abstract

This seminar will present a mathematical modeling of a triangular membrane finite element. The deformation gradient tensor is written in terms of nodal displacements for a simple triangle element. The invariants of the Right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor are written in terms of nodal displacements. The total potential energy is minimized, using a quasi-Newton method, with respect to the nodal displacements. In case of a compressible material, the total potential energy is minimized also with respect to the element thicknesses. The advantages of this approach are: It is not necessary to derive the stiffness matrix; it is not necessary to solve any system of equations; it allows a simple static analysis instead of a pseudo-dynamic analysis (dynamic relaxation with kinetic damping).

Texts and computer codes are available for download from the author's
website:

The deformation gradient and the right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor for triangle element
http://www.arcaro.org/tension/convex3/convex3.zip

Triangle element for plane stress hyperelastic FEA
http://www.arcaro.org/tension/convex3/planestress.zip

Biography

College of Civil Engineering, UNICAMP, Brazil

The Civil Engineering seminar series is open to the University community.
Civil Engineering undergraduate students are especially invited to attend.