A stabilized mixed implicit Material Point Method for non-linear incompressible solid mechanics

Abstract

In this work a stabilized mixed formulation for the solution of non-linear solid mechanics problems in nearly-incompressible conditions is presented. In order to deal with high material deformation, an implicit Material Point Method is chosen. Such choice allows avoiding the classical limitations of the Finite Element Method, e.g., element tangling and extreme mesh distortion. The proposed mixed formulation, with displacement and pressure as primary variables, is tested through classical benchmarks in solid and geo-mechanics where a Neo-Hookean, a J2 and a Mohr-Coulomb plastic law are employed. Further, the stabilized mixed formulation is compared with a displacement-based formulation to demonstrate how the proposed approach gets better results in terms of accuracy, not only when incompressible materials are simulated, but also in the case of compressible ones.