A general discontinuous Galerkin method for finite hyperelasticity. Formulation and numerical applications

A discontinuous Galerkin formulation of the Boundary Value Problem of finite-deformation elasticity is presented. The method is based on a general Hu-Washizu-de Veubeke functional allowing for displacement and stress discontinuities in the domain interior. It is shown that this approach naturally leads to the formulation of average stress fluxes at interelement boundaries in a finite element implementation. The consistency and linearized stability of the method in the non-linear range as well as its convergence rate are proven. An implementation in three dimensions is developed, showing that the proposed method can be integrated into conventional finite element codes in a straightforward manner. In order to demonstrate the versatility, accuracy and robustness of the method examples of application and convergence studies in three dimensions are provided. Copyright c © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.