Geometrical nonlinear analysis of shells

Abstract The wide application of the so-called degenerate shell elements in the field of linear structural analysis is mainly due to their simplicity and easy handling. The object of this paper is to adapt these elements to nonlinear geometrical analysis. An incremental total Lagrangian formulation is presented which allows the calculation of arbitrarily large displacements and rotations. The derivation of the tangential stiffness as well as some remarks concerning its efficient programming are given. In section 3 some sample solutions are presented and compared with reference solutions.