Static and dynamic analyses of isogeometric curvilinearly stiffened plates

Abstract The isogeometric analysis (IGA) is a new approach which builds a seamless connection between Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE). This approach which uses the B-Splines or the Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) as a geometric representation of the object is a discretization technology for numerical analysis. The IGA has advantages of capturing exact geometry and making the flexibility of refinement, which results in higher calculation accuracy. To study the static and dynamic characteristics of curvilinearly stiffened plates, the NURBS based isogeometric analysis approach is developed in this paper. We use this approach to analyze the static deformation, the free vibration and the vibration behavior in the presence of in-plane loads of curvilinearly stiffened plates. Furthermore, the large deformation and the large amplitude vibration of the curvilinearly stiffened plates are also studied based on the von Karman's large deformation theory. One of the superiorities of the present method in the analysis of the stiffened plates is that the element number is much less than commercial finite element software, whereas another advantage is that the mesh refinement process is much more convenient compared with traditional finite element method (FEM). Some numerical examples are shown to validate the correctness and superiority of the present method by comparing with the results from commercial software and finite element analysis.