On the assumed natural strain method to alleviate locking in solid-shell NURBS-based finite elements (Q2512484)

NURBS-based finite element formulations are connected with Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines. NURBS-based finite element formulations can be negatively affected by the appearance of non-physical phenomena that ``lock'' the solution when constrained problems are considered. In order to alleviate such locking behaviors, the Assumed Natural Strain (ANS) method proposed for Lagrangian formulations is extended to NURBS-based elements in the present work, within the context of solid-shell formulations. The performance of the proposed methodology is assessed by means of a set of numerical examples. The results allow to conclude that the employment of the ANS method to quadratic NURBS-based elements successfully alleviates non-physical phenomena such as shear and membrane locking, significantly improving the element performance.