[Libmesh-users] Hisotry variables

[gmail <a.m...@gm...>]

Hi,

I’ve recently added plasticity with implicit integration to my code. This requires keeping track of so called “history variables” (i.e. internal parameters of plasticity such as back stresses, equivalent plastic strain,..) on each quadrature point. I have come up with a crude work around that works currently simply defining each history variable for each quadrature point (in a uniform mesh) as a DG0 variable. I was wondering: 

1) if there’s a better way to do this within the libMesh framework? i.e., a way to attach to a NonlinearImplicitSystem an array of N variables (where N is not necessarily  the number of knowns in the system) with a correct parallel layout.

2) Even though I set the hideoutput flag on, on the ExplicitSystem that contains these variables, it’s still being written to when I call ExodusII_IO::write_timestep().

Many thanks for the help,
Ata