Static Analysis of Stiffened Shells Using an Edge-Based Smoothed MITC3 (ES-MITC3) Method

Quoc Hoa Pham,Phu-Cuong Nguyen,Francesco Foti

doi:10.1155/2021/3996485

Abstract

A novel approach for solving the stiffened shell structures by using an edge-based smoothed MITC3 finite element method (ES-MITC3) is presented in this paper. The ES-MITC3 method is an efficient finite element method by combining the edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) with the original MITC3 triangular element to not only significantly improve the accuracy but also overcome the shear-locking phenomenon in the Reissner–Mindlin shell analysis. In this study, the ES-MITC3 method is applied for shell structures and then reinforced by stiffeners based on the Timoshenko beam theory to achieve more durability and strength structures. The transverse displacements of the shell structures and stiffeners at the contact positions are assumed compatible. Numerical results of the ES-MITC3 element are compared with those of available other numerical results to demonstrate a good convergence and accuracy of the present method.

Highlights

Many engineering structures based on plate/shell models are often reinforced by stiffeners, named stiffened plates/shells, to achieve more durability and strength [1,2]
Mecitoglu [3] firstly presented a free vibration analysis of stiffened conical thin shells based on Donnell–Mushtari theory. e evaluation of free vibration of cylindrical stiffened shells with rings and stringers by using and comparing Donnell’s, Love’s, Sanders’, and Flugge’s thin shell theories was addressed by Ruotolo [4]
Four numerical examples of the stiffened shell are considered to show the high accuracy of the proposed element

Summary

Introduction

Many engineering structures based on plate/shell models are often reinforced by stiffeners, named stiffened plates/shells, to achieve more durability and strength [1,2]. Numerical methods are preferred for solving the stiffened plates/shells, especially the finite element (FE) methods. Almost FE methods proposed for analyzing stiffened shell structures used higher-order elements based on the degenerated shell or shallow thin shell theories.

Results

Conclusion