Genuinely resultant shell finite elements accounting for geometric and material non‐linearity (Q4029397)

This paper represents a comprehensive treatment of the mechanics of shells which undergo large deformations. The work is concerned with two aspects: firstly, a careful development of the theory and secondly, finite element approximations. A feature of the theory is that no simplifying assumptions are introduced at any stage; rather, the shell theory is obtained by specializing the classical three-dimensional balance laws. The result is a theory equivalent to that based on the notion of a Cosserat surface. The development takes place within the framework of modern differential geometry, this has advantages and disadvantage. It is advantageous in that it allows for a logical and fairly compact treatment, but a disadvantage is that this modern approach may be unfamiliar to many workers in this area. Another feature of the work is the careful treatment of kinematics, and in particular of finite rotations, through an arbitrary parametrization of the rotation group SO(3). The authors discuss iterative solution of the nonlinear variational equations by the Newton-Kantorovich method, and, in particular, pay attention to the issue of consistent linearization and updating of the solution after each increment. Finite element approximations of this model have the advantage that no time-consuming integration through the thickness is required. Furthermore, the so-called drilling degrees of freedom associated with shell finite elements enter the formulation in a natural way. A wide variety of test problems involving elastic shells are treated numerically, and results for these problems are presented.