A Galerkin approach to boundary element elastoplastic analysis (Q1082149)

The elastoplastic boundary value problem in terms of rates, formulated using integral equations of linear elasticity, is shown to be amenable, through discretizations, to a linear complementarity problem endowed with a symmetric matrix (in contrast to the traditional boundary element formulation). This symmetrization is achieved by suitably choosing the fundamental solutions and formulating the integral equations for boundary quantities and stresses, and by enforcing in a Galerkin weighted-residual sense (instead of collocation) the boundary integral equations and the plastic constitutive laws over domain cells.