A new triangular composite shell element with damping capability

Abstract

This paper presents a new triangular composite shell element with damping capability. Formulation of the composite triangular shell element is based on stacking individual homogeneous triangular shell ele- ments on top of each other. The homogeneous shell element is an assembly of a triangular membrane element with drilling degrees of freedoms and a plate element. Damping capability is provided by means of complex element stiffness matrix of individual flat layers of the composite element. These elements with damping capability allow modelling general structures with damping treatments. A few test cases are modelled using triangular finite element developed here and the results of the complex eigenvalue analyses are compared with those of the quadrilateral shell elements proposed recently. The results obtained using the presented triangular and previous quadrilateral composite elements are also com- pared with those based on modal strain energy method and experimental results. Comparisons of the experimental and the theoretical results confirm that the modal properties including modal damping lev- els of structures with damping treatments can be predicted with high accuracy using the proposed finite element.