Improvement of plane stress solutions using adaptive finite elements

Abstract

A finite element method is combined with an adaptive meshing technique to improve the accuracy of the finite element solution. The effectiveness of the combined method is evaluated by a plane stress problem that has an exact solution. The problem is that of a panel with a circular cutout subjected to an applied load. The result demonstrates that the adaptive meshing technique can reduce the numbers of the finite elements, the analysis computational time, and improve the accuracy of the analysis solution.