Domain discretization in dealing with domain integral in material nonlinearity plate bending analysis with boundary element method

In this paper, domain discretization in dealing with domain integral in material nonlinearity plate bending analysis with boundary element method is presented. The domain discretization is conducted by using 9-nodes quadrilateral cells. The semi-discontinuous cell of 9-nodes quadrilateral cell is presented in order to avoid the coincident in between boundary element point and domain element point. The nonlinear term in the formula is analysed by considering that the material is assumed to undergo small strains. The von Mises criterion is used to evaluate the plastic zone and elastic perfectly plastic material behaviour is assumed. A total incremental method is implemented to solve the nonlinear system of equation. The numbers of boundary and domain cells are varied to study the convergence of the analysis. The number of boundary and domain cells has an influence on the accuracy of the results. The increased number of boundary and domain cells gives better results, however a relative coarser mesh can be implemented to have a good results. The current results have a good agreement with the previous results by other researchers.