A paper written by Thomas Li (Oasys), T. Ward (Arup), and W.J. Lewis (University of Warwick) has been published on sciencedirect.com. The paper researches the topic of In-plane torsional stiffness in a macro-panel element for practical finite element modelling with the support of Oasys GSA software.
Paper Highlights
- We address the problem of finite element modelling of in-plane torsional stiffness arising in a situation where beam and shell element connections induce in-plane torsional effects in the shell. Previous work concerning a model based on Allman/Cook formulation is found to be lacking sufficient accuracy in predicting these effects.
- Our proposed macro-panel element resolves the problem of the in-plane torsional stiffness of the shell being adversely affected by the size of the finite elements, while retaining the quality of a finely meshed model needed to represent the normal and shear stresses accurately.
- Finite element theory requires element size to be sufficiently small to have accurate results, but for simplification of structure modelling, large element size are sometimes favored to use, the use of the proposed wall elements can overcome this conflict.
- Additional benefits arising from the proposed model are:
- Simpler modelling process as large wall element size can be used
- Simpler analysis results, which makes the model attractive for use in practice.