On the coupling of local 3D solutions and global 2D shell theory in structural mechanics

Most of mechanical systems and complex structures exhibit plate and shell components. Therefore, 2D simulation, based on plate and shell theory, appears as an appealing choice in structural analysis as it allows reducing the computational complexity. Nevertheless, this 2D framework fails for capturing rich physics compromising the usual hypotheses considered when deriving standard plate and shell theories. To circumvent, or at least alleviate this issue, authors proposed in their former works an in-plane-out-of-plane separated representation able to capture rich 3D behaviors while keeping the computational complexity of 2D simulations. However, that procedure it was revealed to be too intrusive for being introduced into existing commercial softwares. Moreover, experience indicated that such enriched descriptions are only compulsory locally, in some regions or structure components. In the present paper we propose an enrichment procedure able to address 3D local behaviors, preserving the direct minimally-invasive coupling with existing plate and shell discretizations. The proposed strategy will be extended to inelastic behaviors and structural dynamics. © 2019, The Author(s).