Quadratic solid–shell elements for nonlinear structural analysis and sheet metal forming simulation

Abstract

In this paper, two quadratic solid–shell (SHB) elements are proposed for the three-dimensional modeling of thin structures. These consist of a 20-node hexahedral solid–shell element, denoted SHB20, and its 15-node prismatic counterpart, denoted SHB15. The formulation of these elements is extended in this work to include geometric and material nonlinearities, for application to problems involving large displacements and rotations as well as plasticity. For this purpose, the SHB elements are coupled with large-strain anisotropic elasto-plastic constitutive equations for metallic materials. Although based on a purely three-dimensional approach, several modifications are introduced in the formulation of these elements to provide them with interesting shell features. In particular, a special direction is chosen to represent the thickness, along which a user-defined number of integration points are located. Furthermore, for efficiency requirements and for alleviating locking phenomena, an in-plane reduced-integration scheme is adopted. The resulting formulations are implemented into the finite element software ABAQUS/Standard and, to assess their performance, a variety of nonlinear benchmark problems are investigated. Attention is then focused on the simulation of various complex sheet metal forming processes, involving large strain, anisotropic plasticity, and double-sided contact. From all simulation results, it appears that the SHB elements represent an interesting alternative to traditional shell and solid elements, due to their versatility and capability of accurately modeling selective nonlinear benchmark problems as well as complex sheet metal forming processes.