Buckling Analysis with the MITC4 Shell Element

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Get to know the MITC4 Shell Element Class

Description of the element's Class; its constructor and Public Methods that can be used.

Mesh Convergence & Aircraft Wing Results

Hemispherical Shell Benchmark: A rigorous convergence test with mesh refinement for testing element's accuracy with warped shell element configurations under large rotations analysis.

Designed to push the limits of element performance under extreme warping, transverse shear, and bending loads.

The MITC4 shell element API achieves fast convergence with mesh refinement.

Explore the gallery for an in-depth analysis of the mesh convergence results and post-processing in our GUI.

Click on the gallery below for the MITC4 Shell API convergence results and post-processing on our GUI for the Hemispherical Shell example.

Aircraft Wing linear elastic simulation with the MITC4 shell API

An application example of the MITC4 Shell API is presented through the linear elastic simulation of an aircraft wing. The wing is fixed at the root (fuselage) and subjected to impulse loading at the landing gear attachment point.

This simulation utilized our free C++ linear elastic template, with pre-processing and post-processing performed using our GUI. The results are showcased in the image gallery below.

Constituents of the API

Stiffness Matrix

Stiffness matrix for the MITC4 shell element. Required for linear and nonlinear analysis.

B-Matrix

Shell element with 4 nodes and full in-plane quadrature rule. User-defined number of integration points along the thickness direction of the shell. Reissner-Mindlin formulation with ANS to alleviate transverse shear locking. Ideal for thin shell simulations.

Geometric Stiffness Matrix

Geometric (Initial Stresses) Stiffness matrix for the MITC4 shell element. It is required for nonlinear analysis with implicit time integration scheme, buckling analysis, etc.

Internal Force

Internal Force vector for the MITC4 shell element. Critical for nonlinear analysis for both explicit and implicit time integration schemes.

Strain Tensor

Strain tensor at all integration points of the element. The strain tensor can be used for different type of constitutive models.

Axes Rotation at the GPs

Rotation of local axes at the Gauss Points. Important for nonlinear co-rotational analysis, e.g. rotation of planar plastic anisotropic axes, rotation of composites ply axes at the GPs.

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• Linear Elastic template in C++

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  • Composite Materials

  • the Arc-Length method

  • Implicit Non-Linear Analysis

  • Explicit Non-Linear Analysis

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