CURVED RATIONAL BEZIER ELEMENT FOR FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF AM-SYMMETRIC SHELLS

Abstract

This dissertation has successfully attempted the introduction of curved Rational Bezier Element for Finite Element Analysis. A new formulation using rational Bezier geometric description and non-rational Bezier displacement function interpolation is presented. For geometric description either quadratic or cubic interpolation can be used optionally. In this formulation both axi-symmetric and non axi-symmetric loadings were accommodated using Fourier series decomposition of displacement function and loading. A PC based finite element program BEZAS is written in 'C' language to test the above formulation.The De-Casteljau algorithm has been used in pre and post processing for mesh refinements and plotting of deflected shapes . This program is found to be giving very good results as various bench mark problems such as wind loaded Albasiny and Martin cooling tower, spherical shell cap with uniform normal pressure, Hemispherical shell with ring moment, and cylinder with radial ring tension were solved. In all these problems the results were found to be in excellent agreement with existing solutions. This curved Rational Bezier element seems to be full of possibili-ties as various other formulations such as for shells of arbitrary geometry curved beam and shell stiffened with beams can be tried. This element certainly has advantages over its counterparts like Hermitian element, because of its superiority in geometric description and typical shape functions. This superiority is clearly demonstrated.