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A rotation‐free shell triangle for the analysis of kinked and branching shells
Author(s) -
Flores Fernando G.,
Oñate Eugenio
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.421
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1097-0207
pISSN - 0029-5981
DOI - 10.1002/nme.1823
Subject(s) - branching (polymer chemistry) , curvature , geometry , computation , shell (structure) , homogeneous , rotation (mathematics) , mathematics , physics , mathematical analysis , combinatorics , algorithm , materials science , engineering , mechanical engineering , composite material
This paper extends the capabilities of previous BST and EBST rotation‐free thin shell elements to the analysis of kinked and branching surfaces. The computation of the curvature tensor is first redefined in terms of the angle change between the normals at the adjacent elements. This allows to deal with arbitrary large angles between adjacent elements and to treat kinked surfaces. A relative stiffness between elements is introduced to consider non‐homogeneous surfaces. This idea is latter generalized to deal with branching shells. Several linear and non‐linear examples are presented showing that the formulation leads to the correct results. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.