Dynamic analysis of cracked thick composite shells by the Boundary Element Method.

This article presents a numerical formulation based on the Boundary Element Method for the transient dynamic analysis of cracked thick symmetrical composite shells. The integral formulation uses the static fundamental solutions for thick orthotropic symmetric plates and the anisotropic plain elasticity fundamental solution. Domain integrals associated to distributed loads, curvature and inertial terms are evaluated employing the Radial Integration Method. The crack was modeled using the sub-region method. The developed formulation is implemented computationally and validated through the analysis of several proposed examples. The obtained results demonstrate the validity and robustness of the developed formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]