CONVERGENCE STUDY OF THE CELLULAR AUTOMATA TECHNIQUE APPLIED TO STRUCTURAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH THE USE OF THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

Structural and solid mechanics problems can show complex global behavior and, in many cases, without an analytical solution. Numerical methods, such as the Finite Element Method (FEM), are traditionally used to study these systems. The Cellular Automata (CA) is a model based on the idea that the microscopic behavior of a system can be reproduced by smaller systems with simpler local rules. As this approach goes from a microscale to a macroscale, this technique enables the study of microscopic effects in macroscopic objects in a natural way. This paper studies the convergence of a hybrid technique of CA and FEM by developing a computational module capable of simulating solid- and structural-mechanics problems. Four update schemes are studied, evaluating the convergence, with different ordinations and degrees of discretization. Keywords: Finite Elements Methods, Cellular Automata, solid and structural mechanics.