DEVELOPMENT OF A CURVED BERNOULLI-EULER BEAM ELEMENT USING NURBS BASIS FUNCTION

Abstract

Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) is effective for the structural analysis of curved members because it can maintain their exact geometry. Therefore, we developed a curved Bernoulli-Euler beam element using the NURBS basis function based on the concept of IGA. The traditional Bernoulli-Euler beam element includes the deflection angle as an unknown variable to maintain the continuity of the deflection angle between elements. On the contrary, our beam element has only displacement as unknown variables. In this study, we analyzed several types of beams. As a result, we confirmed that our IGA beam element is effective for the analysis of curved members. Especially, the beam element could be obtained equivalent performance to FEM when the cubic basis functions were used in straight beams. Moreover, it had high convergence rates of relative error compared to the traditional beam element in a quarter curved beam.