An upper bound kinematic approach to the shakedown analysis of structures

A reduced but equivalent form of Koiter's upper bound kinematic theorem, which does not involve time integrals, is deduced, provided that the plastic strain rates at every point of a structure are confined to a certain number of possible directions in the strain space. Generally it yields an upper bound on the shakedown factor, which improves upon the previous one by Pham and Stumpf.