CURVED BEAM ELEMENTS BASED ON STRAIN FIELDS

Two curved beam elements with two nodes and three nodes are designed b ased on strain fields. At the element level, curvature and membrane st rain fields are approximated independently and shear strain fields are incorporated into the formulation by the equilibrium equations. The d isplacement fields are obtained by integrating the assumed strain fiel ds. Two examples are given to verify the formulations and demonstrate the numerical performance of the two curved beam elements. Analysis re sults obtained reveal that the elements describe the curved beam behav iour correctly and show exceptional accuracy throughout a wide slender ness range.