NEW NONLINEAR HIGHER ORDER SHEAR DEFORMATION SHELL ELEMENT FOR METAL FORMING AND CRASHWORTHINESS ANALYSIS: PART II. PERFORMANCE VALIDATION THROUGH STANDARD TESTS

This work presents the results from a set of verification shell problems used to assess the performance of the higher order shear deformation shell elements formulated in part I of the present study. The developed element has been added to the element library of the nonlinear dynamic explicit finite element code DYNA3D. Several standard verification test problems are performed using the code DYNA3D with the developed shell element. Results are presented for different test problems and are compared with experiments and results from other existing shell elements. The good overall performance builds confidence in the formulation and implementation of the proposed higher order shear deformable element. The superior advantage of the developed element is evident in one of the examples presented for representation of plastic flow through the thickness in isotropic materials. The element can be used in crash and metal forming simulations in local areas of high transverse shear stresses. Local areas of crack in crash applications and splitting in metal forming applications can be modeled more accurately with the developed shell element. Key words: nonlinear higher order shear deformation shell elements, explicit finite element analysis, shell verification test problems, shell element performance