A Hybrid High-Order method for incremental associative plasticity with small deformations

We devise and evaluate numerically a Hybrid High-Order (HHO) method for incremental associative plasticity with small deformations. The HHO method uses as discrete unknowns piecewise polynomials of order k≥1 on the mesh skeleton, together with cell-based polynomials that can be eliminated locally by static condensation. The HHO method supports polyhedral meshes with non-matching interfaces, is free of volumetric locking, and the integration of the behavior law is performed only at cell-based quadrature nodes. Moreover, the principle of virtual work is satisfied locally with equilibrated tractions. Various two- and three-dimensional test cases from the literature are presented including comparison against known solutions and against results obtained with an industrial software using conforming and mixed finite elements.