On the Detection of Stress Singularities in Finite Element Analysis

Finite element analysis (FEA) has become the method of choice for the stress analysis of many of the complex configurations encountered in practice. Such configurations can contain stress singularities. Then, it is critical for the necessarily finite estimates from finite elements to be rejected as valid results for the infinite stresses present. There is an extensive literature devoted to the asymptotic identification of stress singularities that can often, but not always, provide a means for such rejection. The present study seeks to offer a further means of rejection: mesh refinement with divergence checks. These divergence checks are a natural counterpart to the convergence checks of ASME. The two are used together on 265 finite element stresses at 32 different singularities: all of these finite element stresses are thus rejected.