A hierarchic family of isogeometric shell finite elements

A hierarchic family of isogeometric shell finite elements based on NURBS shape functions is presented. In contrast to classical shell finite element formulations, inter-element continuity of at least C-1 enables a unique and continuous representation of the surface normal within one NURBS patch. This does not only facilitate formulation of Kirchhoff-Love type shell models, for which the standard Galerkin weak form has a variational index of 2, but it also offers significant advantages for shear deformable (Reissner-Mindlin type) shells and higher order shell models. For a 5-parameter shell formulation with Reissner-Mindlin kinematics a hierarchic difference vector which accounts for shear deformations is superimposed onto the rotated Kirchhoff-Love type director of the deformed configuration. This split into bending and shear deformations in the shell kinematics results in an element formulation which is free from transverse shear locking without the need to apply further remedies like reduced integration, assumed natural strains or mixed finite element formulations. The third member of the hierarchy is a 7-parameter model including thickness change and allowing for application of unmodified three-dimensional constitutive laws. The phenomenon of curvature thickness locking, coming along with this kinematic extension, again is automatically avoided by the hierarchic difference vector concept without any further treatment. Membrane locking and in-plane shear locking are removed by two different approaches: firstly elimination via the Discrete Strain Gap (DSG) method and secondly removal of parasitic membrane strains using a hybrid-mixed method based on the Hellinger-Reissner variational principle. The hierarchic kinematic structure of the three different shell formulations allows a straightforward combination of these elements within one mesh and is thus the ideal basis for a model adaptive approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.