An SPH formulation for general plate and shell structures with finite deformation and large rotation

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a reduced-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) formulation for quasi-static and dynamic analyses of plate and shell structures undergoing finite deformation and large rotation. By exploiting Uflyand-Mindlin plate theory, the present surface-particle formulation is able to resolve the thin structures by using only one layer of particles at the mid-surface. To resolve the geometric non-linearity and capture finite deformation and large rotation, two reduced-dimensional linear-reproducing correction matrices are introduced, and weighted non-singularity conversions between the rotation angle and pseudo normal are formulated. A new non-isotropic Kelvin-Voigt damping is proposed especially for the both thin and moderately thick plate and shell structures to increase the numerical stability. In addition, a shear-scaled momentum-conserving hourglass control algorithm with an adaptive limiter is introduced to suppress the mismatches between the particle position and pseudo normal and those estimated with the deformation gradient. A comprehensive set of test problems, for which the analytical or numerical results from literature or those of the volume-particle SPH model are available for quantitative and qualitative comparison, are examined to demonstrate the accuracy and stability of the present method.