Finite Element Analysis Techniques of Co-Rotational Formulation for Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Beam Structures

A consistent co-rotational formulation and numerical procedure for the dynamic analysis of planar Timoshenko beam is presented in detail to demonstrate the finite element analysis techniques of co-rotational formulation for nonlinear dynamic analysis of beam structures. The inertia nodal forces and deformation nodal forces are systematically derived by consistent linearization of the fully geometrically nonlinear beam theory by using the d’Alembert principle and the virtual work principle. The nodal coordinates, incremental displacements and rotations, velocities, accelerations and the equations of motion of the system are defined in terms of a fixed global coordinate system, while the total strains in the beam element are measured in element coordinates which are constructed at the current configuration of the beam element. A practical numerical procedure is proposed to determine the current end cross-section coordinates, element coordinates, and element deformations corresponding to an incremental displacement. An incremental-iterative method based on the Newmark direct integration method and the Newton-Raphson method is employed here for the solution of the 284nonlinear dynamic equilibrium equations. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and investigate the effect of the shear deformafion on the dynamic response of the beam structures.