Applications of an assumed-strain rotation-free triangular element for finite strain analysis of thin shell and membranes

FLORES FERNANDO G.; OÑATE EUGENIO

Textile Composites and Inflatable Structures

Springer

Lugar: Hildeberg; Año: 2005; p. 69 - 88

This paper shows applications of a recently developed shell element to theanalysis of thin shell and membrane structures. The element is a three nodetriangle with only translational DOFs (rotation free) that uses theconfiguration of the three adjacent elements to evaluate the strains. Thisallows to compute (constant) bending strains and (linear) membrane strains.A total Lagrangian formulation is used. Strains are defined in terms of theprincipal stretches. This allows to consider rubber materials and other typeof materials using the Hencky stress-strain pair. An explicit centraldifference scheme is used to integrate the momentum equations. Severalexamples, including inflation and deflation of membranes  show the excellent convergence properties and robustness of theelement for large strain analysis of thin shells and membranes.