Nonlinear strain-displacement equations exactly representing large rigid-body motions. II: Enhanced finite element technique (Q2384187)

The precise representation of arbitrarily large rigid-body motions in the displacement patterns of curved Timoshenko-Mindlin-type (TM) shell finite elements has been considered in Part I of this work. Such consideration required the development of strain-displacement equations of finite deformation TM shell theory, which were written in local curvilinear coordinates and were consistent with large rigid-body motions. To this end, the displacement vectors of the face surfaces were introduced and resolved in the reference surface frame. In the present Part II, the authors propose economical schemes of evaluating the stiffness matrix based on analytical integrations inside the element and a refined hybrid-type approach for solving incremental equilibrium equations. The developed approach allows the use of load increments that are much larger than those in the approach of Part I. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the developed four-node curved shell elements and to compare their performance with nonlinear solid shell elements cited from various literatures. The sample problems for numerical tests are full of variety and effective to evaluate the proposed approach.