Applying the Virtual Fields Method to the identification of elasto-plastic constitutive parameters

This paper deals with the identification of constitutive parameters governing elasto-plastic constitutive equations. The procedure used is the virtual fields method. It consists in writing the principle of virtual work with particular virtual fields. A cost function is then deduced. Minimizing this cost function provides the unknown parameters. An important feature is the fact that no finite element analysis is required with this approach. Moreover, it is not sensitive to the distribution of the loading if suitable virtual fields are used. Some numerical examples illustrate the relevancy of the method and its sensitivity to noisy data.