Abstract: Rotation-free finite element analysis While the majority of analytical analyses of plates and shells rely on Kirchhoff-Love (KL)formulations put forth for thin plates and shells, modern finite element formulations draw upon the Reissner-Mindlin (RM) theory for moderately thick shells. The finite element formulations based on RM theory treat translations and annotations as independent variables and are advantageous due to their demand foronly C0-continuity of the geometry between elements and the use of relatively simple shape functions. Nonetheless, RM elements suffer from various locking henomena such as shear locking and are inefficient in analysing very thin shells. With the emergence of stronger materials like carbon fibre-reinforced composites and the realization of lightweight structures with extremely small thicknesses, KLfinite element formulations utilizing only translations as the degrees of freedom are gaining prominence. This talk discusses two such rotation-free finite element formulations: Onates EBST [1] and NURBS-based isogeometric analysis [2] for thin-shell structures.
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