A practical large‐strain solid finite element for sheet forming

An alternative approach for developing practical large‐strain finite elements has been introduced and used to create a three‐dimensional solid element that exhibits no locking or hourglassing, but which is more easily and reliably derived and implemented than typical reduced‐integration schemes with hourglassing control. Typical large‐strain elements for forming applications rely on reduced integration to remove locking modes that occur with the coarse meshes that are necessary for practical use. This procedure introduces spurious zero‐energy deformation modes that lead to hourglassing, which in turn is controlled by complex implementations that involve lengthy derivations, knowledge of the material model, and/or undetermined parameters. Thus, for a new material or new computer program, implementation of such elements is a daunting task. Wang–Wagoner‐3‐dimensions (WW3D), a mixed, hexahedral, three‐dimensional solid element, was derived from the standard linear brick element by ignoring the strain components corresponding to locking modes while maintaining full integration (8 Gauss points). Thus, WW3D is easily implemented for any material law, with little chance of programming error, starting from programming for a readily available linear brick element. Surprisingly, this approach and resulting element perform similarly or better than standard solid elements in a series of numerical tests appearing in the literature. The element was also tested successfully for an applied sheet‐forming analysis problem. Many variations on the scheme are also possible for deriving special‐purpose elements. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.