A Four-node Finite Element for Piezoelectric Shell Structures in Convective Co-ordinates

In this contribution, an isoparametric piezoelectric shell element is presented which is based on convective coordinates and which allows for the analysis of arbitrary shell geometries. A two-field variation formulation [1, 2] is used in which the displacements and the electric potentials serve as independent variables. Especially, for thin-walled structures under certain boundary conditions and load cases, the displacement based element tend to shear and membrane locking. In order to avoid this poor behaviour, the Assumed Natural Strain (ANS) method [3] is introduced into the piezoelectric shell element. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)