An efficient finite element formulation for nonlinear analysis of clustered tensegrity
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose an efficient finite element formulation for nonlinear analysis of clustered tensegrity that consists of classical cables, clustered cables and bars.
Design/methodology/approach
The derivation of the finite element formulation is based on the co-rotational approach, which decomposes a geometrically nonlinear deformation into a large rigid body motion and a small-strain deformation. A tangent stiffness matrix of a clustered cable is proposed and the Newton-Raphson scheme is employed to solve the nonlinear equation.
Findings
The derived tangent stiffness matrix, including an additional stiffness terms that describes the slide effect of pulleys, can regress to the stiffness matrix of a classical cable, which is convenient for the implementation of finite element procedure. Two typical numerical examples show that the proposed formulation is accurate and requires less iteration than the force density method.
Originality/value
The co-rotational formulation of a clustered cable is originally proposed, although some mature methods, such as the TL, Force Density and Dynamic Relaxation method, have been applied to nonlinear analysis of clustered tensegrity. The proposed co-rotational formulation proved efficient.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The projects supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11502035, 11232003), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 106112015CDJXY320006) and Open Research Foundation (No. GZ1404) of State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment at Dalian University of Technology are gratefully acknowledged.
Citation
Zhang, L., Gao, Q., Liu, Y. and Zhang, H. (2016), "An efficient finite element formulation for nonlinear analysis of clustered tensegrity", Engineering Computations, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 252-273. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-08-2014-0168
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited