ABSTRACT
Originally, the finite element method (FEM) was elaborated for calculation of the stress-strain state of elastic bodies by Canadian mathematician Alexander Hrennikoff in 1941 and American mathematician Richard Courant in 1943. In analysis of an externally stable elastic body, the polyhedrons obtained by mental partitioning of a body are often taken as finite elements (FEs), the nodes of each element being the vertices of a polyhedron. While constructing an FE model of a solid body, it is important to specify the supports of nodes correctly. The distributed loads have limited intensity and can be applied along the outline of a plane body or about its volume. The convergence is studied at the domain of an elastic body wherein there is no e-neighborhoods of singular points with a fixed radius. In FEM simulation, it is sometimes necessary to take into consideration the presence of perfectly rigid bodies working together with elastic elements of a structure.
