Identification of material parameters of two-dimensional anisotropic bodies using an inverse multi-loading boundary element technique

An inverse technique, based on the boundary element method (BEM) and elastostatic experiments for identification of elastic constants of orthotropic and general anisotropic 2D bodies is presented. Displacement measurements at several points on the boundary of the body, obtained by a few known load cases are used in the inverse analysis to find the unknown elastic constants of the body. Using data from more than one elastostatic experiment results in a more accurate and stable solution for the identification problem. In the inverse analysis, sensitivities of displacements of only boundary points with respect to the elastic constants are needed. Therefore, the BEM is a very useful and effective method for this purpose. An iterative Tikhonov regularization method is used for the inverse analysis. A method for simple computation of initial guesses for unknown elastic constants and a procedure for appropriate selection of the regularization parameter appearing in the inverse analysis is also proposed. Convergence and accuracy of the presented method with respect to measurement errors and number of load cases are investigated by presenting several examples. Copyright © 2012 Tech Science Press.