Calibration of a class of non-linear viscoelasticity models with adaptive error control

The calibration of constitutive models is considered as an optimization problem where parameter values are sought to minimize the discrepancy between measured and simulated response. Since a finite element method is used to solve an underlying state equation, discretization errors arise, which induce errors in the calibrated parameter values. In this paper, adaptive mesh refinement based on the pertinent dual solution is used in order to reduce discretization errors in the calibrated material parameters. By a sensitivity assessment, the influence from uncertainties in experimental data is estimated, which serves as a threshold under which there is no need to further reduce the discretization error. The adaptive strategy is employed to calibrate a viscoelasticity model with observed data from uniaxial compression (i.e., homogeneous stress state), where the FE-discretization in time is studied. The a posteriori error estimations show an acceptable quality in terms of effectivity measures.