A rigid body spring network model for the simulation of hysteretic behavior of materials

Abstract

In this work, a discrete numerical approach is presented to model the hysteretic behavior of materials. Rigid Body Spring Network models (RBSN) that were first proposed by Kawai [1] are extended to account for hysteretic elastoplastic behavior. Discretization is based on Voronoi tessellation, as proposed by Bolander [2]. The domain is discretized into convex polygons that will form the discrete rigid bodies of the model. These are connected with three zero length springs in the middle of their common interfaces. The springs are following the smooth hysteretic Bouc-Wen model which efficiently incorporates classical plasticity with no direct reference to the yield surface. Numerical results both for static and dynamic loading are presented that validate the proposed formulation and verify its computational efficiency as compared to the standard elastoplastic finite element method.