THE PERTURBATION FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH NONLINEAR MATERIALS

The perturbation method is one of the effective methods for so-lving problems in nonlinear continuum mechanics.It has been de-veloped on the basis of the linear analytical solutions for the o-riginal problems.If a simple analytical solution cannot be ob-tained.we would encounter difficulties in applying this method tosolving certain complicated nonlinear problems.The finite ele-ment method appears to be in its turn a very useful means for sol-ving nonlinear problems,but generally it takes too much time incomputation.In the present paper a mixed approach,namely,theperturbation finite element method,is introduced,which incorpo-rates the advantages of the two above-mentioned methods and enablesus to solve more complicated nonlinear problems with great savingin computing time.Problems in the elastoplastic region have been discussed anda numerical solution for a plate with a central hole under tensionis given in this paper.