Publications

Abstract not provided.

This is an addendum to the Sierra/SolidMechanics 4.22 User's Guide to document additional capabilities that are available for use in the Presto{_}ITAR code that are not available for use in the standard version of Sierra/SolidMechanics (Sierra/SM). Presto{_}ITAR is an enhanced version of Sierra/SM that provides capabilities that make it regulated under the U.S. Department of State's International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) export-control rules. This code is part of the Vivace product, and is only distributed to entities that comply with ITAR regulations. The enhancements primarily focus on material models that include an energy-dependent pressure response, appropriate for very large deformations and strain rates. Since this is an addendum to the standard Sierra/SolidMechanics User's Guide, please refer to that document first for general descriptions of code capability and use. This addendum documents material models and element features that support energy-dependent material models.

Sierra/SolidMechanics (Sierra/SM) is a Lagrangian, three-dimensional code for the analysis of solids and structures. It provides capabilities for explicit dynamic and implicit quasistatic and dynamic analyses. The explicit dynamics capabilities allow for the efficient and robust solution of models subjected to large, suddenly applied loads. For implicit problems, Sierra/SM uses a multi-level iterative solver, which enables it to effectively solve problems with large deformations, nonlinear material behavior, and contact. Sierra/SM has a versatile library of continuum and structural elements, and an extensive library of material models. The code is written for parallel computing environments, and it allows for scalable solutions of very large problems for both implicit and explicit analyses. It is built on the SIERRA Framework, which allows for coupling with other SIERRA mechanics codes. This document describes the functionality and input structure for Sierra/SM.

Finite elements for shell structures have been investigated extensively, with numerous formulations offered in the literature. These elements are vital in modern computational solid mechanics due to their computational efficiency and accuracy for thin and moderately thick shell structures, allowing larger and more comprehensive (e.g. multi-scale and multi-physics) simulations. Problems now of interest in the research and development community are routinely pushing our computational capabilities, and thus shell finite elements are being used to deliver efficient yet high quality computations. Much work in the literature is devoted to the formulation of shell elements and their numerical accuracy, but there is little published work on the computational characterization and comparison of shell elements for modern solid mechanics problems. The present study is a comparison of three disparate shell element formulations in the Sandia National Laboratories massively parallel Sierra Solid Mechanics code. A constant membrane and bending stress shell element (Key and Hoff, 1995), a thick shell hex element (Key et al., 2004) and a 7-parameter shell element (Buechter et al., 1994) are available in Sierra Solid Mechanics for explicit transient dynamic, implicit transient dynamic and quasistatic calculations. Herein these three elements are applied to a set of canonical dynamic and quasistatic problems, and their numerical accuracy, computational efficiency and scalability are investigated. The results show the trade-off between the relative inefficiency and improved accuracy of the latter two high quality element types when compared with the highly optimized and more widely used constant membrane and bending stress shell element.

Abstract not provided.