Isogeometric shell discretizations for flexible multibody dynamics

This work aims at including nonlinear elastic shell models in a multibody framework. We focus our attention to Kirchhoff–Love shells and explore the benefits of an isogeometric approach, the latest development in finite element methods, within a multibody system. Isogeometric analysis extends isoparameteric finite elements to more general functions such as B-splines and NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) and works on exact geometry representations even at the coarsest level of discretizations. Using NURBS as basis functions, high regularity requirements of the shell model, which are difficult to achieve with standard finite elements, are easily fulfilled. A particular advantage is the promise of simplifying the mesh generation step, and mesh refinement is easily performed by eliminating the need for communication with the geometry representation in a CAD (Computer-Aided Design) tool. Target applications are wind turbine blades and twist beam rear suspensions. First numerical examples demonstrate an impressive convergence behavior of the isogeometric approach even for a coarse mesh, while offering substantial savings with respect to the number of degrees of freedom.