Numerical research of functionally graded magneto-electro-elastic structures under thermal environment via the thermo-mechanical-electro-magnetic enriched finite element method

Abstract In this work, the functionally graded magneto-electro-elastic (FG-MEE) structures were used to study mechanical performance under a thermal environment using the thermo-mechanical-electro-magnetic enriched finite element method (TMEM-EFEM). Through enhancing the traditional solution space of the finite element method (FEM), additional degrees of freedom are introduced without modifying the mesh structure. Therefore, as a class of higher-order finite element methods, field variables with high gradients can be captured without a relatively finer mesh. The accuracy of TMEM-EFEM is improved by using interpolation covers. The feasibility of TMEM-EFEM is proven by numerical examples. The proposed TMEM-EFEM is proven to be accurate under the relatively coarse mesh. Through numerical examples, the high accuracy of TMEM-EFEM is demonstrated. Therefore, TMEM-EFEM can be a good alternative for the statics study of FG-MEE structures.