Least-squares finite element formulation for shear-deformable shells (Q817311)

The authors present a least-squares based finite element formulation for numerical analysis of shear-deformable shell structures. The variational problem is obtained by minimizing the least-squares functional, defined as the sum of the squares of shell equilibrium equation residuals measured in suitable norms in Hilbert spaces. The use of least-squares principles leads to an unconstrained minimization problem where compatibility conditions for approximation spaces never arise (i.e. inf-sup conditions). The proposed formulation treats the generalized displacements and stress resultants as independent variables and, in view of the variational setting allows for equal-order interpolation. As a result, the resulting algebraic problem has a symmetric positive definite coefficient matrix. Stress resultants need to be treated as independent variables in order to write the governing shell equations as first-order equations. Stress resultants can be directly approximated in the finite element model, and thus can be predicted with the same accuracy as the generalized displacements.