In general, internal cells are required to solve unsteady thermo-elasto -plastic problems using a conventional boundary element method (BEM). However, in this case, the merit of BEM, which is the easy preparation of data, is lost. The conventional multiple-reciprocity boundary element method (MRBEM) cannot be used to solve thermo-elastoplastic problems, because the distribution of initial stress cannot be determined analytically. In this paper, it is shown that two-dimensional unsteady thermo-elastoplastic problems can be solved without the use of internal cells by using the triple-reciprocity BEM and a thin plate spline. The initial stress formulation is adopted and the initial stress distribution is interpolated using boundary integral equations and a thin plate spline. A new computer program was developed and applied to several problems.
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