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Home blogs vijay310105's blog
Implicit and Explicit finite element method
Submitted by vijay310105 on Mon, 2009-05-04 13:24. education
i am not clear about implicit and explicit FEM
kindly let me know the difference of two and where to use which one
vijay310105's blog Login or register to post comments 89249 reads
difference between explicit and implicit FEM
Submitted by yawlou on Mon, 2009-05-04 14:34.
Hello,
The following is how I understand it. I have done some of both in
graduate school. The following is a brief answer, since this would
take a lot to answer thoroughly.
1. Preliminary comments regarding the incremental nature of Explicit and
Implicit Analysis
A geometric and/or material nonlinear analysis requires incremental load (or
displacement) steps. At the end of each increment the structure geometry
changes and possibly the material is nonlinear or the material has yielded.
Each of these things, geometry change or material change, may then need to
be considered as you update your stiffness matrix for the next increment in the
analysis.
2. Explicit
An Explicit FEM analysis does the incremental procedure and at the end of each
increment updates the stiffness matrix based on geometry changes (if
applicable) and material changes (if applicable). Then a new stiffness matrix is
constructed and the next increment of load (or displacement) is applied to the
system. In this type of analysis the hope is that if the increments are small
enough the results will be accurate. One problem with this method is that you
do need many small increments for good accuracy and it is time consuming. If
the number of increments are not sufficient the solution tends to drift from the
correct solution. Futhermore this type of analysis cannot solve some
problems. Unless it is quite sophisticated it will not successfully do cyclic
loading and will not handle problems of snap through or snap back. Perhaps
most importantly, this method does not enforce equilibrium of the internal
structure forces with the externally applied loads.
3. Implicit
An Implicit FEM analysis is the same as Explicit with the addition that after each
increment the analysis does Newton-Raphson iterations to enforce equilibrium
of the internal structure forces with the externally applied loads. The
equilibirium is usually enforced to some user specified tolerance. So this is the
primary difference between the two types of anlysis, Implicit uses Newton-
Raphson iterations to enforce equilibrium. This type of analysis tends to be
more accurate and can take somewhat bigger increment steps. Also, this type
of analysis can handle problems better such as cyclic loading, snap through,
and snap back so long as sophisticated control methods such as arc length
control or generalized displacement control are used. One draw back of the
method is that during the Newton-Raphson iterations one must update and
reconstruct the stiffness matrix for each iteration. This can be computationally
costly. (As a result there are other techniques that try to avoid this cost by
using Modified Newton-Raphson methods.) If done correctly the Newton-
Raphson iterations will have a quadratic rate of convergence which is very
desireable.
A suggestion. If you'd like to learn further about these two techniques it
would be instructive for you to use both techniques and compare on the same
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5/21/2014 Implicit and Explicit finite element method | iMechanica
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problem. Explicit can be done by simply turning off Newton-Raphson iterations
in an Implicit routine, or by setting the equilibrium tolerance to a large number
in an implicit routine.
As to the question of which method to use, the answer is that it depends. The
type of analysis that is sufficient for your needs will depend on the type of
problem that you are trying to solve. Often times since dynamic analyses are
computationally intensive they are done with the explicit method. However,
for static problems now days it is becoming more common to do the full Implicit
type of analysis.
Nonlinear analysis takes lots of experience and a careful understanding of
what you want to accomplish and also a careful understanding of the anlaysis
capabilities of the software you are trying to use. As I mentioned I have
worked with the above methods of analysis in graduate school and know a
little about it, however, I would be happy for others here at iMechanica who
have more experience than me to give their thoughts on this as well.
It is indeed a very big topic that is difficult to cover in just a brief blog. You
should consider looking at Crisfield's book volume 1 for additional information.
Also, look at the following location for nonlinear fem information
http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/CAS/courses.d/NFEM.d/Home.html
I hope this helps,
Louie
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Implicite vs Explicit solution
Submitted by Peyman Khosravi on Fri, 2009-05-08 18:56.
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Hi Vijay;
Generally there are two methods to solve a dynamic
equilibrium equation at every time step. One method is to predict the solution at
time t+dt by using the solution at time t. This is called explicit. In this
method, one does not need to inverse the stiffness matrix (see the book Finite
Element Procedures, 1996,
Bathe, page 770 for explanation). This may seem at first a good method, however
one should note that it is not stable (i.e. it diverges from the correct
answer) unless the time step is very small. This is why it is called
conditionally stable. So it is used only when the time duration of the problem
is short (like crash problems).
On the other hand, one can solve the equation at time t+dt
based on itself, and also using the solution which has been found for time t. This is
called
implicit, and the most famous one is Newmark method. In this case you need to
inverse the stiffness matrix (because of
the nature of the equations), however since it can be unconditionally stable you
may be able to choose a larger time step. This is a great advantage, which
enables us to finish the problem faster.
For more information refer to the above book.
Cheers
Peyman