The inter-element coupling effect of triangular flat shells
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the inter-element coupling effect of membrane and plate components between two adjacent shells occurring on the common boundary.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, three triangular flat shells developed by combining an excellent membrane element (OPT) with three outstanding plate bending elements (DKT, RDKTM and DST-BK), respectively, are used to study this phenomenon. Benchmark tests are implemented to evaluate the performance of three selected plate elements and the formulated flat shells.
Findings
The inter-element coupling effect of membrane and plate components belonging, respectively, to two adjacent shells deteriorate the performance of shells. Therefore, a shell’s performance cannot be guaranteed certainly by the superimposed membrane and plate behaviors.
Practical implications
The “order matching” criterion is proposed to explain this phenomenon and it is concluded that the flat shell that follows this criterion explicitly may alleviate or even overcome the inter-element coupling effect.
Originality/value
Previous studies mainly focus on formulation of high-performance membrane and plate elements. However, the inter-element coupling effect of membrane and plate components between two adjacent shells occurring on the common boundary, has attracted less attention. Thorough benchmark tests for three flat shells are implemented to investigate the phenomenon. The results shows that the inter-element coupling effect deteriorates the performance of shells. And the “order matching” criterion is proposed to explain this phenomenon and it is concluded that the flat shell that follows this criterion explicitly may alleviate or even overcome the inter-element coupling effect.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation Council of China (Grant No. 51105152, 51125021, 512101052), National Program on Key Basic Research Project (Grant No. 2012CB025903, 2013CB035805), and National Key Technology Support Program (Grant No. 2013BAF03B01).
Citation
Zhang, S., Zhang, Y., Huang, Z., Zhou, H. and Li, J. (2015), "The inter-element coupling effect of triangular flat shells", Engineering Computations, Vol. 32 No. 7, pp. 1959-1980. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-11-2014-0230
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited