Techniques to accelerate thermo-mechanical simulations in large-scale FE models with nonlinear plasticity and cyclic input

A procedure is proposed to reduce the computation time of thermo-mechanical simulations with large nonlinear finite element (FE) models that involve cyclic plasticity. The procedure is helpful when it is practically unfeasible to simulate the huge amount of cycles needed to bring the material model to its fully stabilised state (an unfavourable situation that often occurs when small plastic strains are present), as required before assessing the structural durability. A "reference" test case, with combined kinematic and isotropic nonlinear model calibrated on actual material properties, is compared to accelerated models as well as pure kinematic models. Guidelines on how to set up the accelerated model are finally discussed.