A Novel Augmented Lagrangian Approach For Limit Analysis Computations

In this paper, we introduce a novel upper bound formulation of Limit Analysis applied to plane strain problems. This formulation can considered to be a variant of an existing two-field mixed formulation based on the augmented Lagrangian method also developed by the authors. In contrast to the previous formulation, two independent field approximations are now used to define the velocity field, globally and at element level. It is shown that this feature allows a governing system of uncoupled linear equations to be obtained. Our main concern is to achieve a formulation with appropriate characteristics for implementation in an efficient parallel algorithm. Some numerical examples are presented in order to illustrate the current model performance.