Piezoelectric Co-Rotational 3-Node Shell Element

Geometrically nonlinear FE-analysis of active piezoelectric thin-walled shell structures, based on a Co-Rotational (CR) formulation and the Cell-Smoothed Discrete-Shear-Gap 3-node shell element (CS-DSG3) is presented in this study. The electric potential across the thickness of piezolayers is approximated by a linear function. The basic assumption of the applied Co-Rotational (CR) FEM formulation is that translations and rotations are finite, whereas the strains are small. Large rotation theory is used to update the rotational degrees of freedom. The proposed formulation is tested by means of the originally developed program. A set of piezoelectric coupled static linear and nonlinear cases are studied and the obtained results are compared with those available in the literature. A very good agreement of the results is noted, whereby the numerical effort could be reduced and numerical stability improved compared to other geometrically nonlinear FEM formulations.