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Title: Dynamic quasistatic characterization of finite elements for shell structures.

Abstract

Finite elements for shell structures have been investigated extensively, with numerous formulations offered in the literature. These elements are vital in modern computational solid mechanics due to their computational efficiency and accuracy for thin and moderately thick shell structures, allowing larger and more comprehensive (e.g. multi-scale and multi-physics) simulations. Problems now of interest in the research and development community are routinely pushing our computational capabilities, and thus shell finite elements are being used to deliver efficient yet high quality computations. Much work in the literature is devoted to the formulation of shell elements and their numerical accuracy, but there is little published work on the computational characterization and comparison of shell elements for modern solid mechanics problems. The present study is a comparison of three disparate shell element formulations in the Sandia National Laboratories massively parallel Sierra Solid Mechanics code. A constant membrane and bending stress shell element (Key and Hoff, 1995), a thick shell hex element (Key et al., 2004) and a 7-parameter shell element (Buechter et al., 1994) are available in Sierra Solid Mechanics for explicit transient dynamic, implicit transient dynamic and quasistatic calculations. Herein these three elements are applied to a set of canonical dynamic and quasistaticmore » problems, and their numerical accuracy, computational efficiency and scalability are investigated. The results show the trade-off between the relative inefficiency and improved accuracy of the latter two high quality element types when compared with the highly optimized and more widely used constant membrane and bending stress shell element.« less

Authors:
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1030407
Report Number(s):
SAND2010-7883C
TRN: US201124%%183
DOE Contract Number:  
AC04-94AL85000
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: Proposed for presentation at the ASME 2010 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition held November 14-18, 2010 in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 42 ENGINEERING; ACCURACY; BENDING; EFFICIENCY; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; MEMBRANES; SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES; TRANSIENTS

Citation Formats

Thomas, Jesse David. Dynamic quasistatic characterization of finite elements for shell structures.. United States: N. p., 2010. Web.
Thomas, Jesse David. Dynamic quasistatic characterization of finite elements for shell structures.. United States.
Thomas, Jesse David. 2010. "Dynamic quasistatic characterization of finite elements for shell structures.". United States.
@article{osti_1030407,
title = {Dynamic quasistatic characterization of finite elements for shell structures.},
author = {Thomas, Jesse David},
abstractNote = {Finite elements for shell structures have been investigated extensively, with numerous formulations offered in the literature. These elements are vital in modern computational solid mechanics due to their computational efficiency and accuracy for thin and moderately thick shell structures, allowing larger and more comprehensive (e.g. multi-scale and multi-physics) simulations. Problems now of interest in the research and development community are routinely pushing our computational capabilities, and thus shell finite elements are being used to deliver efficient yet high quality computations. Much work in the literature is devoted to the formulation of shell elements and their numerical accuracy, but there is little published work on the computational characterization and comparison of shell elements for modern solid mechanics problems. The present study is a comparison of three disparate shell element formulations in the Sandia National Laboratories massively parallel Sierra Solid Mechanics code. A constant membrane and bending stress shell element (Key and Hoff, 1995), a thick shell hex element (Key et al., 2004) and a 7-parameter shell element (Buechter et al., 1994) are available in Sierra Solid Mechanics for explicit transient dynamic, implicit transient dynamic and quasistatic calculations. Herein these three elements are applied to a set of canonical dynamic and quasistatic problems, and their numerical accuracy, computational efficiency and scalability are investigated. The results show the trade-off between the relative inefficiency and improved accuracy of the latter two high quality element types when compared with the highly optimized and more widely used constant membrane and bending stress shell element.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1030407}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010},
month = {Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2010}
}

Conference:
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