Non-Conservative and Conservative Loads in Geometrically Nonlinear Shells

Abstract

Responses of geometrically nonlinear shell structures under combined conservative and non-conservative loads are investigated and presented in this paper. The shell structures are discretized by the finite element method and represented by the hybrid strain based three node flat triangular shell elements that were developed previously by the authors. The updated Lagrangian formulation and the incremental Hellinger-Reissner variational principle are employed. Features such as large or small strain deformation, finite rotation, updated thickness so as to account for the “thinning effect” due to large strain deformation, and inclusion or exclusion of the mid-surface director field are incorporated in the finite element formulation. Representative results of two examples are included to demonstrate the capability, accuracy and efficiency of the computational strategy proposed.