A weak form quadrature element formulation of geometrically exact strain gradient shells

Abstract

A geometrically exact strain gradient shell model and its weak form quadrature element formulation are proposed. The governing equations, boundary conditions and corresponding variational form of the shell model are presented. The generalized differential quadrature analogue is employed for derivative approximations of displacements and rotations with C1 continuity conditions brought about by the second-order strain gradient terms. A novel scheme based on auxiliary vectors is developed to represent and update the derivatives of constrained rotations on element edges for the numerical approach. The present quadrature shell element is feasible to incorporate strain gradient terms and free from shear and membrane locking problems due to its adjustable high-order approximation property in nonlinear shell analysis. To demonstrate the potential of this formulation for nonlinear analysis of shells with size effects, five benchmark numerical examples are presented. The results verify the feasibility of this formulation and illustrate the strain gradient effects on elastic shells undergoing large displacements and rotations.