The research proposed will develop a new family of structural elements based on the stress wave distribution method (SWDM). The elements ha ve direct capability for modeling the stress, strain, displacement fie lds associated with elastic and plastic wave propagation in anelastic solids. The family of elements are developed from elastic to elasto-p lastic, and to the general anisotropic solids. Finite and rate depend ent material constitutive relationships are flexibly input. These ele ments may be used for analysis of short time events, impact phenomena, and acoustics, and may, therefore, be beneficial in the fields of in- bore ballistics, plastic forming, penetration mechanics, hypervelocity acceleration, and structureborne, noise propagation.
