A simple computer implementation of membrane wrinkle behaviour via a projection technique

A simple computer implementation of membrane wrinkle behaviour is presented within the classical elastic plane stress constitutive model. In the present method, a projection technique is utilized for modelling of the wrinkle mechanisms, in which the total strains in wrinkled membranes are decomposed into elastic and zero-strain energy parts, and a projection matrix that extracts the elastic parts from the total strains is derived. The resulting modified elasticity matrix that represents the stress–strain relations in wrinkled membranes is thus obtained as product of the classical elasticity matrix and the projection matrix. The modified elasticity matrix is straightforward to implement within the context of the finite element method. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method. Copyright q 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.