DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THICK CURVED BEAMS WITH THE GENERALIZED FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Resumo

The traditional Finite Element Method (FEM) is widely applied in the dynamic analysis of

structures, but, mostly, for higher frequencies, a great computational effort is required. In order to de-
crease this computational effort, the Generalized Finite Element Method (GFEM) arise as an alternative.

The GFEM is based on the Partition of Unity Method and it has as its main characteristic the ability to

incorporate aspects of the problem solution into the approximation space, which may decrease the com-
putational effort involved. The curved beam element has received much attention from researchers for

two main reasons: firstly, because it is a very efficient structural element that can span large distances;
and secondly because it provides insight into various aspects of shell element behavior. The curved beam
element is very sensitive to membrane and shear locking. In order to avoid these issues, trigonometric
functions are used to expand the traditional FEM approximation space using the GFEM approach. In this
paper the application of the GFEM for modal and transient analysis of thick curved beams is proposed.
The GFEM results are compared to reference solutions found in literature and traditional FEM results.