Large deflection analysis of 3D membrane structures by a 4-node quadrilateral intrinsic element

This paper presents a large deflection analysis of membrane structures, in which a 4-node quadrilateral membrane element is proposed. The element is developed based on an intrinsic model called vector form intrinsic finite element (VFIFE). The formulation includes a description of kinematics to dissect rigid body and deformation displacements, and a set of deformation coordinates for each time increment to describe deformation and internal nodal forces. A convected material frame and explicit time integration for the solution procedures are also adopted. The external loading is mainly a normal pressure to the membrane and the developments are made under the assumption of follower forces. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the performance and applicability of the proposed element on the large deflection analysis of 3D membrane structures. It reveals that the proposed element could go through the patch tests and possesses stable, convergent and accurate results.