Analysis of problems in elasto-plasticity via an adaptive FEM–BEM coupling method

The purpose of this paper is to present an adaptive finite element–boundary element coupling method for elasto-plastic analysis. The finite element method is utilized in regions where plastic material behavior is expected to develop, whereas substantial parts of the bounded/unbounded linear elastic body are approximated using the boundary element method. In order to obtain a computationally efficient coupling method, considerable attention is devoted to the generation and adaption of the finite element and boundary element discretizations, according to the state of computation. The proposed method is computationally efficient since it employs smaller finite element regions. Unlike available coupling approaches, the adaptive finite element–boundary element coupling method has the potential advantage that it does not demand predefinition and manual localization of the finite element and boundary element sub-domains.