| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to arrive at a better understanding of the phenomenon of locking of low‐order compatible displacement type of finite elements in particular for the hour‐glass mode of the plane four‐node element and dilative materials. To this end the properties of finite elements are investigated in an analytical way, where a finite element is considered as a plane boundary value problem with prescribed boundary displacement (Dirichlet problem). In this paper for the sake of simplicity the simplest possible linear comparison solid, namely isotropic linear elasticity, is applied, although recognizing fully that for a dilative material elasto‐plasticity would be more realistic. From the study described in this paper it is concluded that locking of the four‐node element is not due to any particular numerical formulation of this compatible finite element since, even the analytical solution suffers from this problem. The locking of this element is not related to incompressibility of the material either as the analytical solution shows locking to occur at a parameter set which differs significantly from the one in case of incompressibility. It is shown that locking is a consequence of the combination of the dilative material behaviour and the compatible displacement type of boundary conditions, which leads to infinite isotropic stresses in the element. These infinite isotropic stresses occur at the limit of uniqueness of the solution, which for this element is shown to occur outside the parameter range of the sufficiency of uniqueness. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
