A new super convergent thin walled composite beam element for analysis of box beam structures

Abstract

In this paper, a new composite thin wall beam element of arbitrary cross-section with open or closed contour is developed. The formulation incorporates the effect of elastic coupling, restrained warping, transverse shear deformation associated with thin walled composite structures. A first order shear deformation theory is considered with the beam deformation expressed in terms of axial, spanwise and chordwise bending, corresponding shears and twist. The formulated locking free element uses higher order interpolating polynomial obtained by solving static part of the coupled governing differential equations. The formulated element has super convergent properties as it gives the exact elemental stiffness matrix. Static and free vibration analyses are performed for various beam configuration and compared with experimental and numerical results available in current literature. Good correlation is observed in all cases with extremely small system size. The formulated element is used to study the wave propagation behavior in box beams subjected to high frequency loading such as impact. Simultaneous existence of various propagating modes are graphically captured. Here the effect of transverse shear on wave propagation characteristics in axial and transverse directions are investigated for different ply layup sequences.