A new beam element which blends the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory with idealised transverse shear flows for aircraft structural analysis

The main aim of this work is to develop a new beam element formulation that would allow the modelling of aircraft structures by blending the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory with transverse shear flows from structural idealisation techniques. It would be demonstrated that the modelling of complex aircraft structures with shell elements can be replaced with this new beam element formulation. The meshing of complex aircraft geometries can be avoided as well as the bonding of the shell elements that belong to different parts of the aircraft, such as the bonding of spars with the wing skin, ribs with skin and stringers with skin. Everything will be lumped into booms that are part of the cross-section of the new beam element. Besides the advantages already mentioned, this new beam element will allow savings in computational cost, will have the transverse shear flows (and shear stresses) embedded in an Euler-Bernoulli formulation without any locking pathology associated.