Large deformation analysis of functionally graded elastoplastic materials via solid tetrahedral finite elements

•Large deformation analysis of functionally graded elastoplastic materials under finite strains.•High order solid tetrahedral finite elements fully integrated.•General locking-free behavior for mechanical problems.

In this paper, a solid finite element formulation applied to the analysis of functionally graded materials (FGMs) under finite elastoplastic deformation with mixed hardening is presented.The main novelty of this paper is the use of gradually variable material coefficients in finite elastoplastic strain regime.The numerical simulations are performed with the same constitutive models but with different variations of the material coefficients. Full integration and high order tetrahedral elements are used. Results show that high order elements and mesh refinement avoids general locking problems. Finally, the differences (regarding final results) between the homogeneous and the FG cases are depicted.