On application of differential geometry to computational mechanics (Q1267855)

We give a short survey of applications of differential geometry to engineering problems in the domain of the finite element method together with a few new ideas. First, we describe the properties of geodesic curves, which have been used in defining distortion measures and inverse mappings for isoparametric quadrilateral hybrid stress four- and eight-node elements in \(\mathbb{R}^2\). The notion of plane or space curves is one of the elementary ones in the theory of differential geometry, because the concept of a manifold comes from the generalization of a curve or a surface in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). Further, we discuss the real global nature of differential geometry. A geometrically exact beam finite strain formulation is defined. The mechanical basis of such a nonlinear model can be found in the mathematical foundations of elasticity. An abstract infinite-dimensional manifold of mappings, a configuration space, is constructed which permits an exact linearization of algorithms, locally. A similar approach was used for beam elements in instability problems. Special attention is focused on quadrilateral hybrid stress membrane elements with curved boundaries which belong to a series of isoparametric elements. The distortion measures are redefined for eight-node isoparametric elements in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) for which geodesic coordinates are used as local coordinates.