A three-dimensional FE nonlinear analysis of membranes

This paper presents a three-dimensional finite element method for computing stress and deformation of membrane structures. A conjugate pair of strain and stress tensors, the Green strain tensor and the Second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor are adopted to give the constitutive equation of Mooney material. By means of exploiting the plane stress condition of membrane, the hydrostatic pressure is directly expressed as functions of strains. Complex membrane structures, like those initially in box shape with abrupt changes in geometry, can also be analyzed by the proposed method.