The bending strip method for isogeometric analysis of Kirchhoff–Love shell structures comprised of multiple patches

In this paper we present an isogeometric formulation for rotation-free thin shell analysis of structures comprised of multiple patches. The structural patches are C1- or higher-order continuous in the interior, and are joined with C0-continuity. The Kirchhoff–Love shell theory that relies on higher-order continuity of the basis functions is employed in the patch interior as presented in Kiendl et al. [36]. For the treatment of patch boundaries, a method is developed in which strips of fictitious material with unidirectional bending stiffness and zero membrane stiffness are added at patch interfaces. The direction of bending stiffness is chosen to be transverse to the patch interface. This choice leads to an approximate satisfaction of the appropriate kinematic constraints at patch interfaces without introducing additional stiffness to the shell structure. The attractive features of the method include simplicity of implementation and direct applicability to complex, multi-patch shell structures. The good performance of the bending strip method is demonstrated on a set of benchmark examples. Application to a wind turbine rotor subjected to realistic wind loads is also shown. Extension of the bending strip approach to the coupling of solids and shells is proposed and demonstrated numerically.