Transient elastodynamic analysis of two-dimensional structures using Coons-patch macroelements

Recently, Coons’ interpolation was used for the construction of large finite elements with degrees of freedom appearing mostly along the boundaries of a structure. So far, these so-called Coons-patch macroelements were successfully applied to the analysis of two-dimensional and axisymmetric elastic structures as well as potential problems including Poisson equation and acoustics. Now, this paper continues the research by investigating their applicability and performance in calculating the propagation of elastic waves within continua due to sudden loads. Explicit (central difference) and implicit (θ-Wilson) time-integration schemes have been successfully applied to four typical model problems in conjunction with the proposed Coons-patch macroelements—without and with substructuring—and the results are successfully compared with conventional finite elements having the same number of nodes along the boundary. Finally, theoretical issues between the proposed global technique and well-established computational methods are discussed.