E. Oñate, F. Flores, J. Marcipar
This paper shows applications of a recently developed thin shell element adequate for the analysis of membrane and inflatable structures. The element is a three node triangle with only translational degrees of freedom that uses the configuration of the three adjacent elements to evaluate the strains in terms of the nodal displacements only. This allows to compute (constant) bending strains and (linear) membrane strains using a total Lagrangian formulation. Several examples, including inflation and deflation of membranes and some practical applications to the analysis, design and construction of membrane structures formed by low pressure inflatable tubes are presented.
Keywords:
Published on 01/01/2007
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA license
Views 182Recommendations 0
Are you one of the authors of this document?