Guaranteed and computable bounds of the limit load for variational problems with linear growth energy functionals. (Q331329)

In this paper, the authors consider the problem of finding bounds of the limit load parameter in physically important variational problems represented by energy functionals with linear growth. The main results concerns a new guaranteed upper bound for functionals with purely linear growth and the truncation technique for the ones with linear growth. For illustration, a model problem which is a scalar counterpart of the classical Hencky model of plasticity is investigated. Next, the method is extended to classical plasticity models described by von Mises and Drucker-Prager yield laws. Finally, some numerical experiments based on classical finite element approximation are provided to efficiently compute bounds of the limit load in the generalized Hencky plasticity.