A simple fully nonlinear Kirchhoff-Love shell finite element

Resumo

The current work develops a new simple Kirchhoff-Love shell finite element model for reliable and
efficient simulation of thin nonlinear structures. This new shell triangular element has 6 nodes and uses penalty
methods to approximate displacement C1 continuity. The DOF’s are the displacements u at the six nodes and an
incremental scalar rotation parameter φΔ at mid-side nodes. The incremental rotation vector αΔ (incremental
Rodrigues parameters) and incremental rotation tensor Q at the mid-side nodes are computed at element level by
solving simple equations. The displacements “u” are interpolated by quadratic polynomials from the nodal values
as usual. Simulations are done comparing its results to other numerical models in order to verify model reliability.