NONLINEAR STATIC ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE SHELLS USING AN EDGE-BASED SMOOTHED FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the geometric nonlinear analysis of composite shell subjected to static load by using an edge-based smoothed finite elements (ES) and the mixed interpolation of tensorial components technique (MITC). The shell is decrete by three-node triangular elements inwhich the stiffness matrices are obtained by using the strain smoothing technique over the smoothing domains formed by two adjacent triangular elements sharing an edge. Equilibrium equation system of the composite shell is formed by the first order shear deformation theory with the geometrical nonlinearity in von Kármán strains. Numerical results show good accuracy and convergence as compared to other existing methods in the literature when employed to analyze the nonlinear static composite shells.