Large elastic deformation of micromorphic shells. Part II. Isogeometric analysis

Abstract

In Part I of this study, a variational formulation was presented for the large elastic deformation problem of micromorphic shells. Using the novel matrix-vector format presented for the kinematic model, constitutive relations, and energy functions, an isogeometric analysis (IGA)-based solution strategy is developed, which appropriately estimates the macro- and micro-deformation field components. Due to the capability of constructing exact geometries and the powerful mesh refinement tools, IGA can be successfully applied to solve the equilibrium equations with dominant nonlinear terms. It is known that different types of locking phenomena take place in the conventional finite element analysis of thin shells based on low-order elements. Non-standard finite element models with mixed interpolation schemes and additional degrees of freedom (DOFs) or the ones used the high-order Lagrangian shell elements which require high computational costs, are the available solutions to tackle locking issues. The present 16-DOFs IGA is found to be efficient because of possessing a good rate of convergence and providing locking-free stable responses for micromorphic shells. Such a conclusion is found from several comparative studies with available data in the well-known macro-scale benchmark problems based on the classical elasticity as well as the corresponding numerical examples studied in nano-scale beam-, plate-, cylindrical shell- and spherical shell-type structures on the basis of the micromorphic continuum theory.