FEM Simulation Elastic (Ultimate Strength)

[wweq]

Hi, I am new to the field of simulation and want to ask if it is allowed to perform an elastic simulation and say that when the stress exceeds 1.5 times the yield strength that the material will fail (for ductile materials) or do you still need to perform a nonlinear analaysis to really take into the nonlinear range of the stress-strain curve/behavior of that material like steel? Thanks!

 

[FEA way]

I would definitely recommend performing nonlinear analysis. Nowadays pretty much every FEA software can easily do it and adding material nonlinearity usually won't cause convergence problems (this is sometimes the issue with geometric nonlinearity). When you include plasticity your stress results will be much more reliable.