FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF SHELL STRUCTURES

The objective in this paper is to present fundamental considerations r egarding the finite element analysis of shell structures. First, we re view some well-known results regarding the asymptotic behaviour of a s hell mathematical model. When the thickness becomes small, the shell b ehaviour falls into one of two dramatically different categories; name ly, the membrane-dominated and bending-dominated cases. The shell geom etry and boundary conditions decide into which category the shell stru cture falls, and a seemingly small change in these conditions can resu lt into a change of category and hence into a dramatically different s hell behaviour. An effective finite element scheme should be applicabl e to both categories of shell behaviour and the rate of convergence in either case should be optimal and independent of the shell thickness. Such a finite element scheme is difficult to achieve but it is import ant that existing procedures be analysed and measured with due regard to these considerations. To this end, we present theoretical considera tions and we propose appropriate shell analysis test cases for numeric al evaluations. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.