Strain Based Cylindrical Rectangular Finite Element for Analysis of Cylindrical Shell under Uniformly Distributed Loads

A cylindrical rectangular finite element is developed in this paper. The element has six nodal degrees of freedom at each of the four corner nodes, (Three general external degrees of freedom and three rotations). The displacement fields of the element satisfy the exact requirements of rigid body modes of motion. Shallow shell formulation is used and the element is based on an independent strain assumption insofar as it is allowed by the compatibility equations. A cylindrical shell problem for which a previous solution exists is first analyzed using the new element to test the efficiency of the element. The element is then used in the analysis of cylindrical shell subjected to uniformly distributed load varying sinusoidal along its length in addition to symmetric sinusoidal edge loads present along its longitudinal boundaries. The distribution of various components of stresses is obtained and the effect of radius-length ratio is also presented to give the designer an insight for the behavior of such structures