Linear tetrahedral element for problems of plastic deformation

Linear tetrahedra perform poorly in problems with plasticity, nearly incompressible materials, and in bending. While higher-order tetrahedra can cure or alleviate some of these weaknesses, in many situations low-order tetrahedral elements would be preferable to quadratic tetrahedral elements: e.g. for contact problems or fluid-structure interaction simulations. Therefore, a low-order tetrahedron that would look on the outside as a regular four-node tetrahedron, but that would possess superior accuracy is desirable. An assumed-strain, nodally integrated, four-node tetrahedral element is presented (NICE-T4). Several numerical benchmarks are provided showing its robust performance in conjunction with material nonlinearity in the form of von Mises plasticity. In addition we compare the computational cost of the nodally integrated NICE-T4 with the isoparametric quadratic tetrahedron. Because of the reduced number of quadrature points, the NICE-T4 element is competitive in nonlinear analyses with complex material models.