Combined plasticity and creep analysis in 2D by means of the boundary element method

This work presents a formulation to make a combined analysis of plasticity and creep in two-dimensional (2D) using the Boundary Element Method. This new approach is developed to combine the constitutive equation for time hardening creep and the constitutive equation for plasticity, the latter based on the Von Misses criterion and the Prandtl–Reuss flow. The implementation of creep strain in the formulation is achieved through domain integrals. The creep phenomenon takes place in the domain which is discretized into quadratic quadrilateral continuous and discontinuous cells. The creep analysis is applied to metals with a power law creep for the secondary creep stage. The results, obtained with reference to three models, show a good agreement when compared to those published in the literature. This finding shows that the Boundary Element Method is a suitable tool to deal with combined nonlinear problems.