Superelastic shell structures modelling: Part I: Element formulation Original Research Article

A C0 three-node shell finite element belonging to the assumed shear strain elements family is extended to account for large strains when a rotating frame formulation is adopted to describe the material behaviour. Within an incremental method associated with the Newton iterative scheme, a strain measure is defined and interpolated in an intermediate configuration assuming a linear interpolation of the incremental geometric transformation. This strain measure allows the definition, in a rotated configuration, of a constitutive incremental strain obtained from a material cumulated tensorial strain. The proposed approach is validated herein considering several elastic finite strains examples.