The p-Method Page 1 of 2

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Concept: The p-Method

The p-Method
A basic understanding of the p-method is necessary so you can define the model and analysis correctly to take
full advantage of the p-method’s benefits. This very simple example can help you to understand how it works.

We have a simple bending bar with loaded length l=40 mm, width b=4 mm, and height h=3 mm. The material is
steel with E=200 GPa. We apply a force of 200 N. Using these values and the analytical equations, the maximum
stress is 333.3 MPa, and the maximum deflection is 0.1481 mm. Note that the analytical equations from the
simple beam theory do not take into account additional deflections from shear stresses.

The CAD geometry, including the load rollers, and the load diagram are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Load Diagram and CAD Geometry

We use half symmetry in the idealized physical model and cut away the load-free beam end. In Simulate, we use
just one p-brick element to mesh the half beam. One percent (1%) convergence is requested on measures:
displacements, strain energy, maximum and minimum principal stress, von Mises stress, and longitudinal stress.

When p=5 the maximum stress is 335.23 MPa, and the maximum deflection is 0.1507 mm. The maximum
deflection does not change between p=3 and p=5, and the maximum stress changes by less than 1%. The
deflection and stress diagrams are shown in Figure 2 for the different values of p. The maximum deflection in the
displacement plot is scaled to 20% of the model size, and in the stress plot to 20 times the absolute value. The
plotting grid in the plots was set to 10.

Figure 2 – Deflection and Longitudinal Stress Results

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The p-Method Page 2 of 2

Click below to listen to the audio version (03:33):

For more information on the p-method see Finite Element Analysis (Wiley Series in Computational
Mechanics) by Szabo and Babuska.

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