Author(s)

Fan Zhang, Alain J. Kassab and David W. Nicholson

Abstract

An inverse algorithm is developed in this paper to reconstruct boundary tractions from internal strains in three-dimensional elasticity using the boundary element method. The numerical instability problem associated with the solution of the inverse elasticity problem is overcome by employing a polynomial approximation of the unknown traction. Introduction of the polynomial approximation has the combined effect of enforcing smoothing conditions and reducing the number of unknowns. Further, global equilibrium conditions are also enforced to reduce the error in the computed tractions. As a result, stable solutions are obtained even for input strains with significant amount of random errors. Numeri

Keywords