A Continuum Based Thick Shell Element for Large Deformation Analysis of Layered Composites

A new continuum based thick shell model is presented for modeling orthotropic laminated shell structures undergoing large elastic deformations. An equivalent single-layer model involving seven nodal degrees of freedom is used. In that layered model, there are no restrictions on the number of layers, their thickness and their stacking sequence. The shell model accounts explicitly for the thickness change in the shell, as well as the normal stress and strain states through its thickness. Shear locking is avoided using an assumed natural strain formulation, while thickness locking is avoided using modified displacement interpolation functions. The performance of the layered shell element is tested using several linear and non-linear composite plate and shell problems involving anisotropic, angle and cross-ply laminates, cylindrical and spherical shells.     

4-Node combined shell element with semi-EAS-ANS strain interpolations in 6-parameter shell theories with drilling degrees of freedom

A 4-node C ⁰ shell element with drilling degrees of freedom is presented in this paper. The element is developed within the nonlinear 6-field shell theory. Kinematics of the shell is described by two independent fields: the vector field for translations and the proper orthogonal tensor field for rotations. Within the theoretical formulation no restriction is applied on magnitudes of displacements and rotations. To avoid locking phenomena the proposed element combines two interpolation schemes: the assumed natural strain (ANS) for transverse shear strains and the enhanced assumed strain (EAS). The latter interpolation is used with asymmetric (in-plane) membrane strains. The performance of the element is evaluated by example of benchmark problems with special emphasis on shell structures containing orthogonal intersections.     

Analysis of the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress in nonlinear thick and thin structures using exact geometry SaS solid-shell elements

This paper presents the finite rotation exact geometry four-node solid-shell element using the sampling surfaces (SaS) method. The SaS formulation is based on choosing inside the shell N SaS parallel to the middle surface to introduce the displacements of these surfaces as basic shell unknowns. Such choice of unknowns with the consequent use of Lagrange polynomials of degree N–1 in the through-thickness distributions of displacements, strains and stresses leads to a robust higher-order shell formulation. The SaS are located at only Chebyshev polynomial nodes that make possible to minimize uniformly the error due to Lagrange interpolation. The proposed hybrid-mixed four-node solid-shell element is based on the Hu-Washizu variational principle and is completely free of shear and membrane locking. The tangent stiffness matrix is evaluated through efficient 3D analytical integration and its explicit form is given. As a result, the proposed exact geometry solid-shell element exhibits a superior performance in the case of coarse meshes and allows the use of load increments, which are much larger than possible with existing displacement-based solid-shell elements.     

An isogeometric solid‐like shell element for nonlinear analysis

An isogeometric solid‐like shell formulation is proposed in which B‐spline basis functions are used to construct the mid‐surface of the shell. In combination with a linear Lagrange shape function in the thickness direction, this yields a complete three‐dimensional representation of the shell. The proposed shell element is implemented in a standard finite element code using Bézier extraction. The formulation is verified using different benchmark tests. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Cell-Based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Modal Analysis of Non-Woven Fabrics

The combination of a 4-node quadrilateral mixed interpolation of tensorial components element (MITC4) and the cell-based smoothed finite element method (CSFEM) was formulated and implemented in this work for the analysis of free vibration and unidirectional buckling of shell structures. This formulation was applied to numerous numerical examples of non-woven fabrics. As CSFEM schemes do not require coordinate transformation, spurious modes and numerical instabilities are prevented using bilinear quadrilateral element subdivided into two, three and four smoothing cells. An improvement of the original CSFEM formulation was made regarding the calculation of outward unit normal vectors, which allowed to remove the integral operator in the strain smoothing operation. This procedure conducted both to the simplification of the developed formulation and the reduction of computational cost. A wide range of values for the thickness-to-length ratio and edge boundary conditions were analysed. The developed numerical model proved to overcome the shear locking phenomenon with success, revealing both reduced implementation effort and computational cost in comparison to the conventional FEM approach. The cell-based strain smoothing technique used in this work yields accurate results and generally attains higher convergence rate in energy at low computational cost.     

A new nine node degenerated shell element with enhanced membrane and shear interpolation

A new nine node degenerated shell element is presented in this paper. In the formulation of the new element, an enhanced interpolation of the transverse shear strains in the natural co-ordinate system is used to overcome the shear locking problem, and an enhanced interpolation of the membrane strains in the local Cartesian co-ordinate system is applied to avoid membrane locking behaviour. It is shown that the resulting element has the requisite number of zero eigenvalues and associated rigid body modes. The element does not exhibit membrane or shear locking for large span/thickness ratios. To illustrate the good performance of the new element some examples are presented including comparisons with the behaviour of the selectively integrated Lagrangian degenerated shell elements.     

A quadrilateral mixed finite element with two enhanced strain modes

An improved plane strain/stress element is derived using a Hu–Washizu variational formulation with bilinear displacement interpolation, seven strain and stress terms, and two enhanced strain modes. The number of unknowns of the four-node element is increased from eight to ten degrees of freedom. For linear and non-linear applications, the two unknowns associated with the enhanced strain terms can be eliminated by static condensation so that eight displacement degrees of freedom remain for the proposed element, which is denoted by QE2. The excellent performance of the proposed element is demonstrated using several linear and non-linear examples.     

Exact geometry four-node solid-shell element for stress analysis of functionally graded shell structures via advanced SaS formulation

Abstract

The exact geometry four-node solid-shell element formulation using the sampling surfaces (SaS) method is developed. The SaS formulation is based on choosing inside the shell N not equally spaced SaS parallel to the middle surface in order to introduce the displacements of these surfaces as basic shell unknowns. Such choice of unknowns with the use of Lagrange basis polynomials of degree N???1 in the through-thickness interpolations of displacements, strains, stresses and material properties leads to a very compact form of the SaS shell formulation. The SaS are located at Chebyshev polynomial nodes that make possible to minimize uniformly the error due to Lagrange interpolation. To implement efficient 3D analytical integration, the extended assumed natural strain method is employed. As a result, the proposed hybrid-mixed solid-shell element exhibits a superior performance in the case of coarse meshes. To circumvent shear and membrane locking, the assumed stress and strain approximations are utilized in the framework of the mixed Hu-Washizu variational formulation. It can be recommended for the 3D stress analysis of thick and thin doubly-curved functionally graded shells because the SaS formulation with only Chebyshev polynomial nodes allows the obtaining of numerical solutions, which asymptotically approach the 3D solutions of elasticity as the number of SaS tends to infinity.     

A quadrilateral shell element incorporating thickness-stretch for nearly incompressible hyperelasticity

The authors proposed a quadrilateral shell element enriched with degrees of freedom to represent thickness-stretch. The quadrilateral shell element can be utilized to consider large deformations for nearly incompressible materials, and its performance is demonstrated in small and large deformation analyses of hyperelastic materials in this study. Formulation of the proposed shell element is based on extension of the MITC4 shell element. A displacement variation in the thickness direction is introduced to evaluate the change in thickness. In the proposed approach, the thickness direction is defined using the director vectors at each midsurface node. The thickness-stretch is approximated by the movements of additional nodes, which are placed along the thickness direction from the bottom to the top surface. The transverse normal strain is calculated using these additional nodes without assuming the plane stress condition; hence, a three-dimensional constitutive equation can be employed without any modification. In this work, the authors apply an assumed strain technique to the special shell element to alleviate volumetric locking for nearly incompressible materials. Several numerical examples are presented to examine the effectiveness of the proposed element.     

p-Version plate and curved shell element for geometrically non-linear analysis

This paper presents a p-version geometrically non-linear formulation based on the total Lagrangian approach for a nine node three dimensional curved shell element. The element geometry is defined by the coordinates of the nodes located on its middle surface and nodal vectors describing the bottom and top surfaces of the element. The element displacement approximation can be of arbitrary and different polynomial orders in the plane of the element and in the transverse direction. The element approximation functions and the corresponding nodal variables are derived from the Lagrange family of interpolation functions. The resulting approximation functions and the nodal variables are hierarchical and the element displacement approximation ensures C° continuity. The element properties are established using the principle of virtual work and the hierarchical element approximation. In formulating the properties of the element complete three dimensional stresses and strains are considered, hence the element is equally effective for very thin as well as extremely thick shells and plates. Incremental equations of equilibrium are derived and solved using the standard Newton–Raphson method. The total load is divided into increments, and for each increment of load, equilibrium iterations are performed until each component of the residuals is within a preset tolerance. Numerical examples are presented to show the accuracy, efficiency and advantages of the present formulation. The results obtained from the present formulation are compared with those available in the literature.     

An efficient co‐rotational formulation for curved triangular shell element

A 6‐node curved triangular shell element formulation based on a co‐rotational framework is proposed to solve large‐displacement and large‐rotation problems, in which part of the rigid‐body translations and all rigid‐body rotations in the global co‐ordinate system are excluded in calculating the element strain energy. Thus, an element‐independent formulation is achieved. Besides three translational displacement variables, two components of the mid‐surface normal vector at each node are defined as vectorial rotational variables; these two additional variables render all nodal variables additive in an incremental solution procedure. To alleviate the membrane and shear locking phenomena, the membrane strains and the out‐of‐plane shear strains are replaced with assumed strains in calculating the element strain energy. The strategy used in the mixed interpolation of tensorial components approach is employed in defining the assumed strains. The internal force vector and the element tangent stiffness matrix are obtained from calculating directly the first derivative and second derivative of the element strain energy with respect to the nodal variables, respectively. Different from most other existing co‐rotational element formulations, all nodal variables in the present curved triangular shell formulation are commutative in calculating the second derivative of the strain energy; as a result, the element tangent stiffness matrix is symmetric and is updated by using the total values of the nodal variables in an incremental solution procedure. Such update procedure is advantageous in solving dynamic problems. Finally, several elastic plate and shell problems are solved to demonstrate the reliability, efficiency, and convergence of the present formulation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

AN EXPLICIT HYBRID STABILIZED EIGHTEEN-NODE SOLID ELEMENT FOR THIN SHELL ANALYSIS

In this paper, the explicit hybrid stabilization method is employed to formulate stabilization vectors for the uniformly reduced integrated eighteen-node solid element. An assumed contravariant stress is devised based on the strain associated with the commutable mechanisms of a geometrically regular element. It will be seen that the stabilization vectors can be derived and programmed explicitly without resorting to numerical integration loops. Admissible matrix formulation is employed in evaluating the flexibility matrix which becomes diagonal and thus induces no inversion cost. The element accuracy is comparable with other state-of-the-art nine-node shell and eighteen-node solid elements. FORTRAN subroutines for constructing the stabilization vectors are presented. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A stabilized co‐rotational curved quadrilateral composite shell element

A new curved quadrilateral composite shell element using vectorial rotational variables is presented. An advanced co‐rotational framework defined by the two vectors generated by the four corner nodes is employed to extract pure element deformation from large displacement/rotation problems, and thus an element‐independent formulation is obtained. The present line of formulation differs from other co‐rotational formulations in that (i) all nodal variables are additive in an incremental solution procedure, (ii) the resulting element tangent stiffness is symmetric, and (iii) is updated using the total values of the nodal variables, making solving dynamic problems highly efficient. To overcome locking problems, uniformly reduced integration is used to compute the internal force vector and the element tangent stiffness matrix. A stabilized assumed strain procedure is employed to avoid spurious zero‐energy modes. Several examples involving composite plates and shells with large displacements and large rotations are presented to testify to the reliability, computational efficiency, and accuracy of the present formulation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extended rotation-free shell triangles with transverse shear deformation effects

The paper extends recent work of the authors to include transverse shear effects on rotation-free triangular element for plates (O?ate and Zárate in Int J Numer Methods Eng 83(2):196–227, 2010). Two new shell triangular elements are presented, the EBST+ and the EBST+1. Transverse shear deformation effects are important for thick shells, as well when the shell is laminated or formed by composite material. The ingredients for the element formulation are: a Hu-Washizu type mixed functional and linear interpolation for the displacement field. In both elements presented a finite volume approach is used for computing the bending moments and the curvatures over a patch of elements. The nodal translational degrees of freedom of the original enhanced basic shell triangle (EBST) are extended with the two shear deformation angles via two different approaches. The first one uses a linear interpolation of the rotation angles inside the element (EBST+) and the second one assumes a constant field for the rotation angles (EBST+1). For the thin shell case the shear angles vanish and the new elements reproduce the good behaviour of the original thin EBST element. As a consequence the elements can reproduce the solutions for thick to thin shells situations without exhibiting shear locking. The numerical solution for the thick shell case can be found iteratively starting from the deflection values for the Kirchhoff theory using the original thin EBST element. Examples of the good performance of the new rotation-free shell triangles are given.     

Non‐linear analysis of shells with arbitrary evolving cracks using XFEM

A new formulation and numerical procedures are developed for the analysis of arbitrary crack propagation in shells using the extended finite element method. The method is valid for completely non‐linear problems. Through‐the‐thickness cracks in sandwich shells are considered. An exact shell kinematics is presented, and a new enrichment of the rotation field is proposed which satisfies the director inextensibility condition. To avoid locking, an enhanced strain formulation is proposed for the 4‐node cracked shell element. A finite strain plane stress constitutive model based on the logarithmic corotational rate is employed. A cohesive zone model is introduced which embodies the special characteristics of the shell kinematics. Stress intensity factors are calculated for selected problems and crack propagation problems are solved. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A bilinear shell element based on a refined shallow shell model

A four‐node shell finite element of arbitrary quadrilateral shape is developed and applied to the solution of static and vibration problems. The element incorporates five generalized degrees of freedom per node, namely the three displacements of the curved middle surface and the two rotations of its normal vector. The stiffness properties of the element are defined using isoparametric principles in a local co‐ordinate system with axes approximately parallel to the edges of the element. The formulation is based on a modern, refined variant of the shallow shell models found from the classical books on shell theory. In addition, the bending behavior of the element is improved with numerical modifications, which include mixed interpolation of the membrane and transverse shear strains. The numerical experiments show that the element is able to compete in accuracy with the highly reputable bilinear elements of the commercial codes ABAQUS and ADINA. The new formulation even outperforms its commercial rivals in problems with strong layers such as vibration problems or problems with concentrated loads. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

隔离非线性分层壳有限单元法

分层壳单元由于其模型简单,物理意义清晰,被广泛应用于建筑结构的有限元数值模拟中。该文基于隔离非线性有限元法提出了分层壳单元的高效非线性分析模型,将分层壳单元的截面变形（应变和曲率）分解为线弹性变形和非线性变形,以单元中面的高斯积分点作为非线性变形插值结点,建立了非线性变形场,并根据虚功原理,推导了分层壳单元的隔离非线性控制方程,采用Woodbury公式和组合近似法联合求解控制方程。依据时间复杂度理论的统计分析表明:该文建立的方法相较于传统变刚度有限元方法在非线性分析效率方面具有显著优势。并与有限元软件ANSYS的计算结果进行对比,验证了该文方法的准确性。     

Stress and vibration analyses of anisotropic shells of revolution

An efficient computational strategy is presented for reducing the cost of the stress and free vibration analyses of laminated anisotropic shells of revolution. The analytical formulation is based on a form of the Sanders-Budiansky shell theory including the effects of both the transverse shear deformation and the laminated anisotropic material response. The fundamental unknowns consist of the eight strain components, the eight stress resultants and the five generalized displacements of the shell. Each of the shell variables is expressed in terms of trigonometric functions (Fourier series) in the circumferential co-ordinate, and a three-field mixed finite element model is used for the discretization in the meridional direction. The shell response associated with a range of Fourier harmonics is approximated by a linear combination of a few global approximation vectors, which are generated at a particular value of the Fourier harmonic, within that range. The full equations of the finite element model are solved for only a single Fourier harmonic, and the response corresponding to the other Fourier harmonics is generated using a reduced system of equations with considerably fewer degrees of freedom.