On a stress resultant geometrically exact shell model. IV: Variable thickness shells with through-the-thickness stretching (Q1174435)

In previous parts [see the foregoing entry ( Zbl 0746.73015)] of this work a nonlinear geometrically exact stress resultant shell model for the analysis of large deformations is presented. The finite element method is applied on the basis of classical kinematic hypothesis. It is shown that ill-conditioning of the formulation can be circumvented by introducing a multiplicative decomposition of the director field into an inextensible vector part and scalar stretching part, which involves only a trivial modification of the weak form of the equilibrium equations. The exact update procedure automatically ensuring the positive thickness stretch is presented. Numerical examples are presented that illustrate the effects of the thickness stretch. The performance of the proposed mixed interpolation, and the well-conditioned response exhibited by the present approach in thin-shell limit.