ABSTRACT
In the paper, a novel simplified co-rotational formulation for triangular shell elements is proposed, which has clear physical meanings and is much simpler and easier to visualize than the conventional method. This simplified method inherits the property of element-independence from the conventional method, which means that the existing linear shell elements can be directly incorporated with it to conduct the geometrically nonlinear analysis. In addition, a novel pure deformational method is proposed, which can simplify derivation and formulation of a local triangular shell element. To illustrate the performance of the novel co-rotational algorithm, the triangular flat shell element consisting of the membrane element with drilling rotations and the plate element allowing for shear deformation is used. Finally, two benchmark problems are employed to validate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed formulation.
