A posteriori error estimate for stress analysis of homogeneous and heterogeneous materials: An engineering approach

A new a posteriori error estimate for finite element stress analysis is proposed. This engineering approach is characterized by using local reference systems that allows establishing which stress components must be continuous and which may not be continuous at interfaces between two elements. It is shown that, for a 3D analysis, only three stress components are sufficient to evaluate the stress error, and for a 2D analysis only two stress components are needed. Some 2D examples are considered and excellent results are obtained for both homogenous and heterogeneous materials.