CURVATURE-BASED BEAM ELEMENTS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF TIMOSHENKO AND SHEAR-DEFORMABLE CURVED BEAMS

Curved beam elements with six degrees of freedom and two-, three-, fou r- and five-node Timoshenko straight beam elements with four, five, si x and seven degrees of freedom, respectively, are proposed to eliminat e stiffness locking when applied to the dynamic analysis of the beams. The elements are basd on curvature assumptions so that they can repre sent the bending energy accurately, and the shear strain energy is inc orporated into the formulation by way of the equilibrium equation. Eig envalue problems of Timoshenko and shear-deformable curved beams are a nalyzed by using the elements. The results of the eigen-analysis show that the curvature-based beam elements are free of locking and are eff icient. (C) 1995 Academic Press Limited.