Nonlinear finite element analysis of elastic frames

Abstract A very simple and effective formulation and numerical procedure to remove the restriction of small rotations between two successive increments for the geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis of in-plane frames is presented. A co-rotational formulation combined with small deflection beam theory with the inclusion of the effect of axial force is adopted. A body attached coordinate is used to distinguish between rigid body and deformational rotations. The deformational nodal rotational angles are assumed to be small, and the membrane strain along the deformed beam axis obtained from the elongation of the arc length of the deformed beam element is assumed to be constant. The element internal nodal forces are calculated using the total deformational nodal rotations in the body attached coordinate. The element stiffness matrix is obtained by superimposing the bending and the geometric stiffness matrices of the elementary beam element and the stiffness matrix of the linear bar element. An incremental iterative method based on the Newton-Raphson method combined with a constant arc length control method is employed for the solution of the nonlinear equilibrium equations. In order to improve convergence properties of the equilibrium iteration, a two-cycle iteration scheme is introduced. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

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