A co-rotational quasi-conforming 4-node resultant shell element for large deformation elasto-plastic analysis (Q2382838)

A co-rotational, quasi-conforming formulation of a 4-node stress resultant shell element is presented for nonlinear analysis of plate and shell structures. The tangent stiffness matrix is explicitly integrated, so that this element becomes computationally efficient in incremental nonlinear analysis. It includes drilling degrees of freedom to improve membrane behavior and allow the modeling of stiffened plates and shells, it is also free from shear locking. The formulation of the geometrical stiffness is derived using the full definition of Green strain tensor. The bending moment and transverse shear resultant forces are also included in the geometric stiffness to allow effective stability analysis of moderately thick plates and shells. The stresses are directly taken at the nodal points without extrapolation. The plasticity is traced by applying the von Mises yield condition and Prandtl-Reuss flow rule to discrete points through the thickness. The multi-layered approach is based on equally spaced stations including extreme fibers, and a modified trapezoidal rule is used for numerical integration of the constitutive relation in the plastic part. Numerous tests are carried out for nonlinear validation of the present element by benchmark problems, and particularly to see effects of numbers of stress points. The results appear to be in good agreement with reference ones, and the proposed element is in fact available for various problems.