On a geometrically exact Euler‐Bernoulli beam element

In this work, a geometrically exact, fully nonlinear Euler‐Bernoulli beam formulation is presented. Herewith a special case of Timoshenko rod models, discussed in various publications such as [2] or [4], is considered. Following the basic assumptions of transversal shear rigidity and plane cross sections, the formulation is based on displacements, their derivatives and a torsional rotation angle, in order to cover finite deformations and rotations. A straight reference configuration is considered, whereas the possibility for initially curved configurations is discussed in [1]. Within the Euler‐Bernoulli theory a cross section undergoes ridged body translation and rotation. While the translation is described by the motion of the beam axis only, the rotation is accounted within a rotational field, see e.g. [3]. In the present formulation, the rotational field is parametrized by the rotation tensor based on Rodrigues formula, which yields a simple update scheme as shown in [5], and is the first of its kind for Euler‐Bernoulli beam models. Using this parametrization an ansatz is presented, that allows for consistent connection of structural members, even in cases of physical discontinuities. On the element level C 1 continuous Hermite polynomials are used to interpolate the displacements an their derivatives, while a Lagrangian interpolation scheme is chosen for the torsional rotation. A numerical Benchmark problems is presented to demonstrate the performance of the finite element formulation.