Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

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Finite Elements in Analysis and Design

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Determining the reference geometry of plastically deformed material body MARK

undergone monotonic loading and moderately large deformation
⁎
Jia Lua, , Linlin Lib
a
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1527, USA
b
Suzhou Industrial Park Institute of Vocational Technology, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: This article presents an inverse method for predicting the reference geometry of plastically deformed material
Inverse method body. The reference configuration is found by solving an elastic-plastic boundary value problem to determine an
Inverse elastoplastic problem inverse deformation that maps the spatial material points back to their reference positions. Rate-type
Reference geometry elastoplastic constitutive laws are employed in the inverse analysis. When the stress exceeds the yield limit,
Plastic deformation
the plastic flow is invoked and plastic variables are predicted. The ensuing stress field satisfies equilibrium and
yield condition. However, the loading history is replicated only approximately and therefore the reference
configuration is approximately recovered. The method is limited to a certain family of deformations. In this
work, we restrict the method to problems involving monotonic loading and moderately large deformations.
Numerical examples demonstrate that the method is effective and reasonably accurate for such problems.

1. Introduction membrane theory to describe the mechanical behavior of thin metal

Finding the reference geometry of a finitely deforming material
body is of great interest to many engineering applications. For elastic
material, this problem has been well-studied. Yamada [1] and
Govindjee et al [2,3] pioneered an inverse method that directly solves
the equilibrium boundary value problem for the reference configura-
tion, and this approach has led to finite element implementations that
are similar to standard forward elements [2–8]. Structural inverse
problems have also been investigated [9–12]. Recently, the inverse
method finds applications in biomedical analysis to deal with problems
for which only deformed configurations are known at the onset
[13,10,14,6,15]. It was reported that, for some biological systems, the
inverse method also helps to address the issue of lack of information of
material properties [16,17].
Theoretically, elastoplastic deformations are history dependent and
thus the inverse problem is not well-posed. The inverse solution is not
unique unless the loading history or the plastic strain in the deformed
state is known. Nonetheless, there has been a strong practical interest
in the inverse elastoplastic problems. In the sheet metal forming
community, a large body of work has been devoted to determining
the initial blank geometry of workpieces based on a target final
geometry using inverse analysis [18–25]. The hallmark of these works
is to solve the equilibrium boundary value problem inversely to
determine the initial geometry. Early developments mostly employed
sheets and implemented a one-step scheme to obtain the solution
[20,19,26]. Bending effect was incorporated by using shell theory
[21,25] and three dimensional constitutive laws [27]. These works
mostly adopted the deformation theory of plasticity which assumes that
each material point undergoes proportional loading and the axes of the
strain are fixed. To better capture the history effect, multi-step schemes
which admitted the proportional loading assumption stepwise were
introduced [18,21,25]. Lately this inverse approach has been utilized in
forging applications [28].
The inverse formulation based on the deformation theory of
plasticity was found to give good strain estimation but poor stress
prediction. To improve the stress estimation a pseudo-inverse ap-
proach was developed by Guo et al [29–33]. In this approach,
geometrically realistic intermediate configurations were introduced.
The inverse method was used to adjust the intermediate configurations
succeedingly starting from the final configuration. The flow theory of
plasticity and also damage theory were utilized in the inverse update
process.
The contributions cited above demonstrated the usefulness of
inverse analysis in forming applications. However, since the deforma-
tion theory was adopted mostly, the material was treated algorithmi-
cally as elastic. Also, certain prior information about the shape of the
initial and/or intermediate configurations was incorporated in the
analysis and these conditions are pertinent only to forming or forging

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jia-lu@uiowa.edu (J. Lu).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.finel.2017.02.002
Received 22 June 2016; Received in revised form 27 November 2016; Accepted 10 February 2017
0168-874X/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
J. Lu, L. Li
applications. It remains unclear how well an elastoplastic deformation
can be inversely predicted in a general setting. An attempt towards
solving inverse elastoplastic problem using the algorithmic framework
of [1,2] was reported in Germain et al. [34]. The authors demonstrated
that when the plastic variables are known a priori the inverse approach
can be used to recover the reference geometry. This finding under-
scored the fact the elastoplastic inverse problem is ill-posted. The
inverse solution is not unique unless the plastic variables, or alter-
natively the loading path, are given. In reality, the plastic variables are
unknown at the onset. To cope with this issue, the authors introduced a
recursive process [35,36] consisting of iterative loops of inverse and
forward analyses using the inverse computation to predict the refer-
ence geometry and the forward analysis to engage the plastic flow. In
each loop, an inverse step is carried out first, with plastic variables fixed
at their current value. This is followed by a forward step applied on the
predicted reference geometry to generate the plastic variables. In
essence, this is an operator-splitting scheme which splits the inverse
problem into two sub-problems: determining the reference geometry
and determining the plastic variables. The plastic flow is introduced in
the forward step to recover the loading path.
In this work, we explore a direct approach of inverse analysis for
elastoplastic materials governed by the flow theory of plasticity. The
given information is the current geometry, applied forces and materi-
al's constitutive law. The unknowns are the reference geometry and
plastic variables in the current state. We propose to use the elasto-
plastic constitutive law directly in the framework of [2,3]. When the
stress is found to exceed the yield limit, the plastic flow is invoked and
the plastic variables are predicted. The analysis will yield a reference
configuration and a set of plastic variables. The ensuing stress satisfy
equilibrium and yield condition. However, since the analysis starts with
the current geometry, the actual strain history is not replicated and
thus the analysis can only yield approximate solutions. The premise is,
if the inverse “loading path” is somehow close to the actual loading
history, the inverse solution is expected to be reasonably accurate. The
method, therefore, is not a general approach but limited to a certain
family of elastic-plastic deformations for which the strain history can
be reasonably replicated in the inverse process. Here, we focus on
problems involving monotonic loading and moderately large deforma-
tions. The rationale will be explained later.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. To set the
stage, the inverse elastoplastic boundary value problem is briefly
described in Section 2. A finite element formulation is outlined in
Section 3. The formulation utilizes existing material models and
therefore only the element level computation is presented. Numerical
examples are presented in Section 4.
2. Inverse elastoplastic problem
We seek to find a reference configuration of a plastically deformed
material body based on the knowledge of (1) a deformed configuration
of the body, (2) the applied body force, (3) boundary conditions
including Cauchy traction data and displacement data, and (4) the
constitutive law of the material. As alluded earlier, the approach is to
determine the inverse deformation by solving the following boundary
value problem: find the inverse motion Φ: Ω ↦ ) ∈ R3 such that
σij, j + bi = 0 in Ω
Φ=Φ on ∂Ωu
σijnj = ti on ∂Ωt .
(1)
Here σ is the Cauchy stress, bi is a component of the body force per unit
current volume, ti is a component of the prescribed boundary traction,
Ω is the given current configuration, and ) is the sought reference
configuration. The inverse deformation Φ(x , t ) is the kinematic inverse
of the forward deformation φ(X, t ) at any fixed time. The gradient
2
Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11
f≔∂xΦ(x , t ) is the inverse of the forward deformation gradient
F≔∂ Xφ(X, t ). If, during the inverse solution process the stress is found
to exceed a given elastic limit, the problem cannot be treated as elastic.
An elastoplastic constitutive law is then invoked.
We focus on rate-independent plastic behavior described by the
finite strain elasto-plasticity theory presented in, e.g. [37–39]. This
theory treats an elastoplastic material as a family of elastic materials
parameterized by plastic variables. In particular, we will utilize
constitutive forms that take a metric-like plastic deformation tensor
Cp as a primitive plastic variable [40,41]. For the model employed later
in the simulation, the plastic variables include the tensor Cp and an
equivalent plastic strain, ep. At fixed plastic variables, the stress is
given by a (hyperelastic) function of Cauchy-Green deformation tensor
C and the plastic variables. The admissible stress lies in a (convex)
region in the stress space bounded by a yield surface. If the stress tends
to penetrate the yield surface, plastic flow is activated to bring the
stress back to the yield surface.
In the numerical solution the elastoplastic constitutive equation is
handled in essentially the same manner as in the forward analysis.
Given a predicted reference configuration at time step n + 1, the
deformation tensor is computed from
fn +1 = ∂xΦn +1, Cn +1 = f −n +1
T −1
f n +1 (2)
A trial stress STr
is computed using the strain Cn+1 and the current
n +1
plastic variables. If the trial stress satisfies the yield condition, then
Sn +1 = STr
n +1 and plastic variables remain intact. Otherwise, a return
mapping is performed to project the stress back and update the plastic
variables. Note that the plastic tensor Cp is a field variable defined in
the (iteratively determined) reference configuration and it predicted
along with the latter. The yield condition is enforced at every step and
hence the stress satisfies the yield condition at the end.
Although the treatment of elastoplastic response is algorithmically
the same as in the forward analysis, there is a fundamental difference:
the stain history (e.g. the loading path) is inferred from the inverse
deformation. In general, the inverse strain history cannot be the same
as the forward one, and thus, the actual loading path is not exactly
replicated. The difference in the strain history is the root cause for the
inverse solution to be approximate. A pre-requisite for the method to
work is that the inverse loading path remains somehow close to the
forward one. Under this circumstance, we expect that the predicted
reference configuration and plastic variables are reasonably accurate.
Below, we speculate some conditions for the loading paths to be close.
A rigorous error analysis is beyond the scope of this work.
1. Monotonicity of loading. We first require the loading to be mono-
tonic. To the leading order, the strain path in a monotonic loading is
a line between the starting and end points in the strain space. This
path depends largely on the end points, and thus is more likely to be
reproduced in the inverse process. Physically, since there is no
unloading or reverse plastic loading, the history influence is less
prominent. Note that although the monotonicity condition seems
restrictive, there is a wide range of practical problems that can fit
into this category. For example, most forming or casting processes
are essentially monotonic; the deformation increases continuously,
bearing little or no reversal loading.
2. Moderately large deformation. Another restriction is that the
deformation cannot be arbitrarily large. In elastoplastic analysis
the solution is typically obtained incrementally. In the inverse
approach, the predicted configuration at an intermediate step tn is
a partially recovered reference configuration, in contrast to a
partially deformed current configuration in the forward analysis.
The stress in the forward analysis satisfies equilibrium on the
partially deformed current configuration, whereas the stress in the
inverse analysis always achieves equilibrium on the given, full
current configuration. The intermediate stresses are different from
the equilibrium perspective. If the deformation is too large, the
J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

Fig. 1. One-step results. (a) The reference (unshaded) and current configuration (shaded) in the loop analysis; (b) Configuration error plotted on the predicted reference; (c) Forward
prediction of J2; (d) Forward prediction of the Equivalent plastic strain, ep. The inverse solutions of ep and J2 are exactly the same as the forward counterparts.

inverse and forward stress histories could be too far apart to render a ΔG = ∫Ω δ E: jep : [ − C∇UF]S − 2δ E: [j∇UFS]S
good result.
+ (δ E: j S)tr(GradU) dv (4)
As a side note, if an elastoplastic problem can be solved in a single S
Here, [·] denotes the symmetric part of the tensor [·]. The linearized
load step, the inverse solution is expected to be exact, in the sense that
week form can also be represented in the following spatial form [8]
it exactly reverts the forward displacement and recovers the plastic
variables. This is because, algorithmically, the stress response is driven ΔG = ∫Ω ∇S δ u: ep : [ − F∇U]S − 2∇S δ u: [F∇Uσ ]S
by the end strain and there is no history effect. There is also no
limitation on the magnitude of deformation as long as the solution + (∇S δ u: σ )tr(GradU) dv (5)
converges. ep ep T T
where  is the spatial tangent tensor,  = jFF F F , and σ is the
ep

Cauchy stress, σ = jFSFT . Introducing the following B-matrices:

Nel Nel Nel
3. Finite element formulation ∇S δ u = ∑ BI δ uI , [F∇U]S = ∑ BFI UI , [F∇Uσ ]S = ∑ BGI [σ ]UI
I =1 I =1 I =1 (6)
The inverse finite element formulation is based on the weak form we obtain the expression of the element stiffness matrix

G≔ ∫Ω δ E: j S dv − < fext, δ u > = 0 KIJ = ∫v − BTI epBFJ − 2BTI BGJ [σ ] + (BTI σ )GradT NJ dv
e (7)
⎡ ∂N ∂N ∂N ⎤
Here, E is the Cauchy-Green strain, S is the second Piola-Kirchhoff Here GradT NJ = ⎢ ∂XJ ∂XJ ∂XJ ⎥. The explicit expressions of the B-opera-
⎣ 1 2 3⎦
stress, δE is the variation of E induced by a kinematically
tors can be found in Ref. [8].
admissible variation δu to the current configuration, and
As a working plasticity model, the finite strain isotropic plasticity
<fext , δ u > = ∫ b·δ u dv + ∫ t ·δ u da . The stress power is integrated
Ω ∂Ω t theory in Ref. [42] was employed in this work. The constitutive
over the given current configuration Ω and thus the volume factor description is based on a multiplicative decomposition of deformation
j = detf is included. The operator ‘:’ stands for tensor contraction, gradient, leading to the elastic Finger tensor be = FC−1 T
p F . The strain
A: B = AIJ BIJ . The weak form yields a set of nonlinear algebraic energy is a quadratic function of the (logarithmic) elastic strain
equations for the nodal values of Φ , which is subsequently linearized 1
ϵe = 2 logbe . The basic equations are summarized below.
with respect to the increment of Φ . Let U: Ω ↦ R3 be an incremental
inverse displacement. The increment of G is computed using Gateaux Stress function τ = 2μϵe + λ trϵe1
d
differential ΔG(Φ, ·) = dε G(Φ + εU, ·), giving 2
ε=0 Yield condition f = ∥ τdev ∥ − σy
3
ΔG = ∫Ω δ E: j ∂∂ES : ΔE + Δ(δ E): j S + (δ E: S)Δj dv (3) or f = ∥ τdev ∥ +
β
trτ −
2
σy
3 3
In writing ΔG as above it is assumed that the external forces do not ∂f 2
Flow rule 3 vbe = − 2γ nbe , n≔ e˙p = γ
depend on the reference configuration. If they do, their increments ∂τ 3
should be considered. The material tangent tensor ∂S is denoted as ep
∂E Hardening rule σy = σy0 + hisoep (8)
hereafter. Invoking δ E = FT ∇S δ uF and carrying out the computations,
˙ T
p F , τ = FSF is the Kirchhoff stress and τdev is the
Here 3 vbe = F C−1 T
it was found that [8]

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J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

Fig. 2. Multi-step results. (a) Current configuration (shaded) and the predicted reference (mesh); (b) Configuration error; (c) Forward ep; (d) Inverse ep; (e), Forward J2; (f) Inverse J2;
(g). ep error; (h). J2 error.

deviatoric part of τ . The flow rule leads to the following plastic update
Table 1
Errors of configuration and some state variables. algorithm in the logarithmic strain space:
Tr
Case err (σ ) err(ep) err(J2) err(conf) ϵen +1 = ϵen +1 − Δγn

Tr 1 −1 T
Cantilever, one step 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 where ϵen +1 = 2 log(Fn +1C pnF n +1). The return mapping algorithm was
Cantilever, multi-step 2.65E-2 6.47E-3 5.35E-3 6.85E-3 detailed in Ref. [42] and further discussed in Ref. [39]. Briefly, the
Bar, 90° rotation 3.21E-2 4.13E-2 1.81E-2 2.52E-2 return mapping is carried out in the principal space of be . In this space,
Bar, 180° rotation 7.26E-2 8.32E-2 4.48E-2 3.31E-2
the computational structure of the infinitesimal J2 plasticity is com-
Disk compression 2.76E-2 7.74E-2 9.76E-3 1.08E-2
Thermal loading 3.37E-2 4.83E-3 7.14E-3 7.34E-3 pletely preserved. The material function returns the Cauchy stress σ
and the algorithmic spatial tangent tensor ep , which are directly

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J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

passed to the element level computation.

4. Numerical examples

Loop tests were conducted to evaluate the inverse method. In a loop

test, a forward analysis was conducted to produce a current configura-
tion and a set of plastic variables. Subsequently, an inverse analysis was
performed using only the current configuration as input. The plastic
variables were initialized to zero, and re-predicted. The forward and
inverse solutions were compared. Scaled error norms were computed
to quantify the difference in state variables:

∫Ω ∥ Δ(·)∥ dv
err (·) =
∫Ω ∥(·)∥ dv

Here Δ(·) stands for the difference between the forward and the inverse
solutions. The configuration error was defined slightly differently by
normalizing the difference against the forward displacement u :

∫Ω ∥ XGiven − XPredicted ∥ dv
err (conf ) =
∫Ω ∥ u ∥ dv

The contours of the errors of equivalent plastic strain ep, the stress
invariant J2, and the configuration were plotted in each example. The
norms are reported in a single table at the end of this section.

4.1. Cantilever

A cantilever problem was introduced primarily to demonstrate the

Fig. 3. Histories of plastic strain and stress component σ1 at the Gauss point in the left-
upper corner.
difference between single-step and multiple-step solutions. This was
the only example wherein the solution converged in a single load step.
The length and height of the beam were 10 and 1 units of length,
respectively. A downward force of 0.02 units was applied at the right
tip. The left bottom node was fixed, and other nodes on the left edge
were allowed to move vertically. The material parameters were set to be

Fig. 4. Twisting of the bar at two levels of deformation. Upper row: 90° rotation. Lower row: 180° rotation. Left column: deformed configurations; Middle column: Predicted reference
configurations; Right column: configuration error plotted on the reference configuration.

5
J. Lu, L. Li
Fig. 5. Comparison of forward and inverse solutions. (a) Forward J2; (b) Inverse J2; (c) J2 error; (d) Forward equivalent plastic strain, ep; (e) Inverse ep, (f) ep error.
Fig. 6. Schematics of example 4.3.
μ = 38.46, λ = 57.69 σy0 = 0.2, hiso = 5
All units are assumed to be consistent.
A single load step. When the problem was solved using a single load
step, an exact reversion was obtained. Fig. 1 shows the configurations
and contours of ep and J2. The inverse and the forward solutions are
exactly the same therefore only the forward results are plotted. The
1
maximum strain, ∥ 2 logC ∥max , is 0.0766. The vertical displacement at
the tip is 3.58 units of length.
Multiple load steps. The same problem was solved in ten load steps.
The solution is not exact; the configuration error is shown in Fig. 2
along with contours of state variables and their differences. The error
norms are reported in Table 1.
To show the differences in solution paths, the histories of ep and σ1
at a Gauss point are plotted in Fig. 3. Notably, the plastic strains are
closer near the two ends of the loading path, but more distanced in the
middle. The stress exhibits a similar trend, although the difference at
the high strain end is larger than that of the lower strain end.
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Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11
4.2. Twisting of a prismatic bar
A square cross section bar fixed at one end and subjected to a
torque at the other end was considered. The length of the bar was 10
units and the cross section width was 1 unit. A forward analysis was
performed to generate a deformed configuration. This analysis was
displacement driven; a rigid rotation around the longitudinal axis was
applied on the rotating end with the longitudinal displacement con-
strained. The reaction forces at the peak twist were recorded. The
inverse analysis was force-driven; the rotational displacement at the
loading end was replaced by the nodal reaction forces recorded in the
forward analysis. The forces were proportionally applied keeping theirs
directions fixed. In effect, they generated a torque that was propor-
tionally applied to the bar. The other end remained fixed. In both
analyses the load was divided into 100 steps. The material parameters
were the same as the previous example. Two levels of deformation, a
90° and a 180° rotation, were considered. The maximum (logarithmic)
strains were found to be 0.0625 and 0.1260, respectively.
The given and predicted configurations are presented in Fig. 4. It
can be seen that the reference configuration was accurately recovered
in both cases. The configuration error is slightly skewed towards the
loading end. The plastic strain ep and the invariant J2 are shown in
Fig. 5 along with the error contours. Note that forward solutions of
state variables are symmetric in the longitudinal direction whereas the
inverse solutions are not. This is expected because the boundary
conditions are no longer symmetric in the inverse analysis. The error
norms are reported in Table 1. The error norms at 180° rotation
approximately double those at 90° rotation. When the bar was rotated
further, the error increased and a linear correlation was observed. The
derails are omitted.
4.3. Compression of a disk
A circular disk of unit radius was compressed by two sets of rigid
blocks to a maximum displacement of 5% of the radius (Fig. 6). Due to
symmetry, only a quarter of the disk was analyzed. The contact
J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

Fig. 7. Disk compression: (a) Current configuration (shade) and the reference configuration (mesh); (b) Configuration error; (c) Forward ep; (d) Inverse ep; (e) Forward J2; (f) Inverse
J2; (g) ep error; (h) J2 error.

condition between the blocks and the disk was enforced using an μ = 344.83, λ = 3103.45,
augmented Lagrangian method. Symmetry conditions were applied on
σy0 = 10.00, hiso = 1.00
the left and upper edges of the analysis domain. A plane strain
condition was imposed. The following material parameters were used:
In the forward analysis the displacement was applied (on the blocks)

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J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

Fig. 8. Thermal plastic deformation. Upper row: Inverse prediction of the reference geometry. (a) The targeted configuration; (b) The intermediate configuration; (c) The predicted
reference configuration. Lower row: forward verification. (d) Reference configuration, the same geometry as (c); (e) The configuration after elastic-plastic heating; (f) The end
configuration after elastic cooling; (g) Configuration error – the difference in geometry between (a) and (f). The lower row is supposed to be the inverse process of the upper row.

in ten steps. At each step, the nodal contact forces exerted on the disk
were recorded. The deformed configuration at the peak compression was
used as the input geometry for the inverse analysis. The inverse solution
was transformed into force-driven; the contact constraints were replaced
by the contact forces retrieved from the forward analysis. The symmetry
boundary condition on the left and upper edges remained intact. The
contact forces were applied step by step in the sequence they were
recorded. In this problem, it was proved critical to use the contact force
history instead of the reaction at the peak load. When the latter was used,
the inverse solution was less accurate.
The reference configuration was recovered to a good accuracy. The
predicted configuration is show in Fig. 7 along with some state
variables. Error norms are reported in Table 1. The maximum
logarithmic strain for this problem is 0.1810. The average strain is
approximately 0.06.
4.4. Thermal plastic deformation
A cylindrical tube under thermal loading was analyzed. The tube
was heated from a room temperature of T0 = 25 °C to 425 °C, and

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J. Lu, L. Li Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11

Fig. 9. Comparison of state variables in the heated configuration. (a) Inverse ep; (b) Forward ep; (c) Inverse J2; (d) Forward J2; (d) ep error; (f) J2 error.

cooled to the room temperature. The top and bottom surfaces were β 2
f = ∥ τdev ∥ + trτ − g(T )σy
fixed. During the heating phase plastic deformation occurred, resulting 3 3
in changes in both shape and volume. A thermal-elastoplastic consti-
tutive law was adopted. The stress function reads The return mapping algorithm of this model can be found [39]. The
following material parameters were used:
τ = 2g(T )μϵdev + g(T )λ(logJe − α(T − T0 ))1
μ = 357, λ = 1428, α = 0.0003,
where T is the temperature, α is the thermal expansion coefficient, σy0 = 5, hiso = 10, β = 0.05
Je = detbe , and g(T) is a function describing the temperature depen-
T − T0
dence of the elastic properties. Here, g(T ) = e− 800 . To accomondate Unlike the other examples which took a loaded configuration as given,
plasticity-induced volume change, a Drucker-Prager model was em- here we assumed that the configuration after the heating-cooling cycle
ployed: was known (or targeted). This configuration was plastically deformed
and residually stressed, but not loaded. The goal was to design the
reference geometry so that a target geometry was obtained after the

9
J. Lu, L. Li
heating-cooling cycle. The target geometry was a perfect cylindrical
tube; the inner and out radii and the length were 1.2, 2.4, and 5 units,
respectively. The loading cycle consisted of an elastic-plastic heating
phase over which plastic deformation was accumulated, followed by an
elastic cooling phase. The cooling phase was elastic because the stress
level reduced and thus stress points moved towards the interior of the
elastic region. No new plastic deformation was generated in this phase.
A two-phase analysis was employed to predict the reference
geometry. The first phase was a forward elastic heating from the target
configuration, with plastic variables and residual stress set to zero. This
analysis was to revert the contracting deformation during cooling and it
yielded an intermediate configuration which approximated the one
after the elastoplastic heating from the reference state. The second
phase was an inverse elastoplastic phase applied on the intermediate
configuration. The reference geometry was determined in this phase.
To verify the inverse results, a forward analysis was carried out on
the predicted reference configuration with zero plastic variables. The
geometry and plastic variables at the end of the heating phase were
predicted. Subsequently, the body was elastically cooled, and the end
geometry was obtained. The end configuration was compared to the
target, and the plastic variables were also compared to those predicted
in the inverse analysis. The heating and cooling phases were divided
into 100 and 10 steps, respectively. At each step, the temperature was
applied uniformly over the body. Note that, although the entire loading
cycle was not monotonic, the phase where plastic deformation took
place was. For this example the maximum (logarithmic) strain in the
heating phase was 0.2771.
Fig. 8 shows the configurations involved in the analysis and the
error contour. Notably, the target configuration was accurately recov-
ered. Fig. 9 shows the state variables ep and J2 and the error contours.
The errors norms are on the order of 10−3–10−2, as recorded in Table 1.
5. Concluding remarks
Determining the reference geometry of plastically deformed mate-
rial body is of significant interest to engineering applications. This
inverse problem is challenging because it is not well-posed. The present
contribution tests an inverse method which utilizes elastoplastic
constitutive laws directly in the framework of [1,2]. The method works
under the premise that the loading path in the inverse analysis is close
to the actual path. It is unclear in general how this condition can be
guaranteed. In this work, this condition is safe-guarded by restricting
the method to problems of monotonic loading and moderately large
deformations.
We used four examples to evaluate the method. Altogether they
showed that the inverse method is effective and reasonably accurate for
the said family of problems. The first example showed that when the
load was applied in a single step, the exact inverse of the forward
solution was obtained. When the load is applied in one-step, the
solution is driven by the end strain and thus, algorithmically, there is
no history effect. When the load is applied incrementally, the inverse
solution is approximate. The accuracy of the solution depends on the
magnitude of the deformation. In all example, it was shown that the
errors increased proportionally with the deformation. The third
example also underscored the importance of prescribing the correct
force history. It was imperative to apply the contact force history
instead of using the contact force at the peak contact stage. The last
example suggested that the method can be well-suited to thermal
plasticity problems. For such problems the deformation is driven by the
thermal strain; if the thermal strain is monotonic the method appeared
to be effective even for fairly large deformations.
The peak strains in these examples ranged from 6–27%. The thermal
problem had the highest peak strain of 27%. The other three examples
had strains between 6–18%. In all three problems, the accuracy of the
solution was found to deteriorate when the deformation further increased.
The allowable strain range is certainly problem-specific, but these example
10
Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 130 (2017) 1–11
suggests that the method may be applicable to up to 10–15% strain for
mechanical problems and higher for thermal strain problems.
Acknowledgements
The second author (LL) was supported by Jiangsu Overseas
Research and Training Program for University Prominent Young and
Middle-aged Teachers and Presidents. This work was initiated when
she was visiting The University of Iowa.
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