Elasto-plastic analysis for 2d structures with truss-like materials

The elasto-plastic analysis of structures composed oftruss-like materials takes much time and considerable resourcesin modeling and numerical calculation if all struts are taken intoconsideration. The main purpose of this paper is to speed up the solution ofthis class of problems. The unit cell is simplified as a truss model accordingto the large ratio of strut's length to the section size. Numericalhomogenization is carried out due to the periodic arrangement of cells inspace. The original problem is thereby transformed to two interrelatedproblems of two different scales: a nonlinear elastic continuum computation inmacro-scale and several elasto-plastic analyses of small-scale truss systemsin micro-scale. Monotone load, non-monotone load, regular macro-structureand irregular macro-structure with imperfect unit cells are, respectively,considered in two numerical examples. In comparison with the results ofthe actual structures, the proposed method is found to enjoy the same precision but to take less time. At last the applicable conditions of the proposed method are discussed.