An effective numerical analysis of singular stress fields in dissimilar material wedges under thermo-mechanical loads

•A super wedge apex element is developed by using numerical eigensolutions.•Wedges under thermo-mechanical loads are studied by the super wedge apex element.•The present numerical method yields satisfactory solutions with fewer elements.•The numerical solutions are insensitive to the size of the super wedge apex element.•The present element is applicable to multiple singular points or fields.

A super wedge apex element for dissimilar material wedges is developed by using numerical stress and displacement field solutions with an ad hoc finite element eigenanalysis method. Singular stresses near the apex of an arbitrary dissimilar material wedge under thermo-mechanical loads can be obtained by using a super wedge apex element in conjunction with hybrid-stress elements. The validity and applicability of this technique is established by comparing the obtained results with existing asymptotic solutions. All numerical examples show that the present numerical method yields satisfactory solutions with fewer elements and is applicable to complex problems such as multiple singular points or fields.