Bounds on history-dependent or independent local quantities in viscoelasticity problems solved by approximate methods

This paper introduces new strict error bounds of outputs of interest for linear viscoelasticity structural problems involving internal state variables and calculated by the finite element method. Using extraction techniques and the concept of dissipation error, we show that we can get both strict and effective bounds by using convexity properties and by taking effects of error accumulation into account. Copyright q 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.