Mesh and Model Adaptivity for Multiscale Elastoplastic Models With Prandtl‐Reuss Type Material Laws

ABSTRACT Homogenization methods simulate heterogeneous materials like composites effectively, but high computational demands can offset their benefits. This work balances accuracy and efficiency by assessing model and discretization errors of the finite element method (FEM) through an adaptive numerical scheme. Two model hierarchies are introduced, combining mean‐field and full‐field methods, and nonuniform transformation field analysis (NTFA) with full‐field methods. Both hierarchies use a full‐field FEM solution of the representative volume element (RVE) as reference. The study highlights the benefits of using effective constitutive equations from mean‐field and full‐field methods as well as NTFA methods, with a goal‐oriented a posteriori error estimator based on duality techniques controlling mesh and model errors in a forwards‐in‐time manner.