Adaptive mesh-updating methods for non-linear finite element analysis of shells

We consider methods for adaptive updating of computational meshes during incremental loading of non-linear shell and solid structures. In particular, we focus on updating methods where the initial topology of the mesh is maintained. The movement of the mesh (the convective step) is decoupled from the Lagrangian solution step and is done by using separately computed displacement fields, obtained by solving auxiliary thermoelastic problems. The properties of this mesh-updating procedure are investigated and demonstrated on several examples. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.