New accurate two-noded shear-flexible curved beam elements

 There are two purposes of this work. One is to present two accurate two-noded finite elements which are derived from the potential energy principle and the Hellinger–Reissner functional principle respectively. The second is to show the successful application of the internal displacement parameters in developing a high-order related displacement-rotation interpolation field. Because the derived interpolation field is capable of accurately modeling deformation modes in extreme thin curved beams and nearly straight beams, both shear locking and membrane shocking are avoided. Several standard numerical tests display superior behaviors of the present elements. Received: 5 February 2002 / Accepted: 16 September 2002