Stress and stress gradient evaluation -- a BEM approach (Q1343830)

This paper reviews the current methods for boundary stress evaluation by the boundary element method, and derives a formula for the stress gradient on the boundary. A simple post processing scheme is presented, which uses stress continuity and stress gradient continuity along a traction boundary as two extra conditions, so that a high order shape function can be employed for the evaluation of stresses and stress gradients on the boundary. Two numerical examples are used to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed scheme for stresses and stress gradients on the boundary. The third example shows the application of the post processing method in the shape design sensitivity analysis.