Development of bem for thermoplasticity

A boundary element method (BEM) for general thermoplastic analysis is presented. A thermally-sensitive two surface material model is used to simulate constitutive behavior. The nonlinear system of equations, arising from an initial stress approach, is solved using a new Newton-Raphson solution algorithm. The stress tensors are collapsed into a scalar variable using certain characteristic tensors arising out of the constitutive equations. This leads to a simpler system requiring much less computation. The solution algorithm is iterative in nature and checks for convergence at the end of each increment. The resulting robust analysis tool is then utilized in solving several practical applications to illustrate the growing importance of BEM as an alternative to the finite element method.