Parameter sensitivity of anisotropic elasto-plastic shell

1.Abstract A continuum-based design sensitivity analysis (DSA) applied to the thickness design of the anisotropic elasto-plastic shell structures is developed. Since main interest lies in developing path-following algorithms for solving sensitivity problems of elasto-plasticity, such an incremental or a step-by-step formalism will be employed to implementation into the structural analysis program. Because of the response sensitivity at a given time and location generally depends on the response itself and its sensitivities at previous time instant a good accuracy of the sensitivities is needed. In this article the associative plastic flow rule is considered and the elasto-plastic material model is limited to the linear hardening case according to the assumption that the yield criterion does not change in shape as the material hardens. The topics of the solving procedure of the sensitivities are presented. 2.