Panpenalty finite element programming for plastic limit analysis

Abstract A unified panpenalty finite element programming method for limit analysis is established based on the theory of convex analysis, and a penalty-duality finite element model is constructed, which provides an efficient algorithm for the exact solution of the safety factor. In order to reduce the number of degrees-of-freedom in nonlinear programming, a generalized matrix inverse technique is suggested, resulting in a decrease in computer time. Several numerical results for structural analysis are presented.