An improved isogeometrical analysis approach to functionally graded plane elasticity problems

The isogeometric analysis method is extended for addressing the plane elasticity problems with functionally graded materials. The proposed method which employs an improved form of the isogeometric analysis approach allows gradation of material properties through the patches and is given the name Generalized Iso-Geometrical Analysis (GIGA). The gradations of materials, which are considered as imaginary surfaces over the computational' domain, are defined in a fully isoparametric formulation by using the same NURBS basis functions employed for the construction of the geometry and the approximation of the solution. The basic concept of the developed approach is concisely explained and its relation to the standard isogeometric analysis method is pointed out. It is shown that the difficulties encountered in the finite element analysis of the functionally graded materials are alleviated to a large degree by employing the mentioned method. Different numerical examples are presented and compared with available analytical solutions as well as the conventional and graded finite element methods to demonstrate the performance and accuracy of the proposed approach. The presented procedure can also be employed for solving other partial differential equations with non-constant coefficients. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.