LAUSR

ABSTRACT In this study, a locking-free six-node triangular shell element is proposed to nonlinear analysis of shell structures under the effects of both thermal and mechanical loads. Total Lagrangian formulation is used to consider large deflections and rotations. Besides, mixed interpolation of tensorial components is applied in the relations to deviate shear and membrane locking. The effects of temperature on the nonlinear deflections of shells are studied in several numerical examples. Moreover, analytical solution will be proposed for large deflection analysis of cantilever and simply supported beam under the thermal loads. To validate the proposed formulation, the finite element analysis results are compared by analytical solutions. Based on the obtained results of linear and nonlinear problems, it will be depicted that the authors’ scheme is capable for thermomechanical analysis of shell structures accurately.