NON-LINEAR INITIAL STABILITY ANALYSIS OF CYLINDRICAL SHELLS BASED ON VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE FOR NON-LINEAR NON-CONFORMING FINITE ELEMENT METHODS

Based on the variational principles for geometrically non-linear non-conforming finite element methods and classical shell theory, a non-linear non-conforming rectangular cylindrical shell element is proposed in a total Lagrangian formulation and is applied to the non-linear stability analysis of cylindrical shells. Numerical examples are presented to show that the present method ensures good convergence.