COMPUTATIONAL-EFFICIENCY OF P-VERSION AND H-VERSION ELEMENTS

The plate-with-a-circular-hole problem has been solved using p- and h-version models. Both models give solutions of comparable accuracy in roughly the same amount of computer time. As p is increased from 8 to 10 in the p-version models, and the number of 8-node isoparametric elements is increased from 30 to 42 in h-version models, the accuracy of stress values and distributions does not improve significantly in both versions. However, the computational effort in the p-version models increases much more (200%) than it does in the h-version models (40%). Because one of the edges in each of the two elements of the p-version model is curved, the stiffness matrix cannot be evaluated in closed form and consumes a significant amount of computer time.