José Ángel González Pérez

New methods are presented for the direct computation of higher‐order inverse mass matrices (also called reciprocal mass matrices) that are used for explicit transient finite element analysis. The motivation of this work lies in the need of having appropriate sparse inverse mass matrices, which present the same structure as the consistent mass matrix, preserve the total mass, predict suitable frequency spectrum and dictate sufficiently large critical time step sizes. For an efficient evaluation of the reciprocal mass matrix, the projection matrix should be diagonal. This condition can be satisfied by adopting dual shape functions for the momentum field, generated from the same shape functions used for the displacement field. A theoretically consistent derivation of the inverse mass matrix is based on the three‐field Hamilton principle and requires the projection matrix to be evaluated from the integral of these shape functions. Unfortunately, for higher‐order FE shape functions and serendipity FE elements, the projection matrix is not positive definitive and can not be employed. Therefore, we study several lumping procedures for higher order reciprocal mass matrices considering their effect on total‐mass preserving, frequency spectra and accuracy in explicit transient simulations. The article closes with several numerical examples showing suitability of the direct inverse mass matrix in dynamics.