On the effect of initial stresses in two dimensional finite element stress analysis (Q760262)

An attempt has been made to obtain the solutions of initially stressed materials using finite element method. The formulations used here eliminate most of the difficulties which were present in earlier classical formulations. It has been found that the total stiffness matrix becomes non-symmetric when there are initial stresses and it becomes symmetric when there are no initial stresses and this changing nature of the stiffness matrix is due to the fact that the medium does not remain isotropic in the presence of initial stresses. A computer program based on FORTRAN-IV has also been given.