On the use of solid–shell elements for thin structures: Application to impact and sheet metal forming simulations

Abstract

A family of linear and quadratic assumed-strain based solid‒shell elements (SHB) is presented in this paper to simulate 3D thin structural problems including both quasi-static and dynamic analyses. The SHB solid‒shell elements are based on a three-dimensional formulation, with only displacements as degrees of freedom, and a reduced integration technique with an arbitrary number of integration points along the thickness direction, which enables them to model 3D thin structures with only one layer of elements through the thickness. All SHB elements have been successfully implemented into ABAQUS dynamic/explicit and static/implicit codes. Several static and dynamic benchmark tests as well as sheet metal forming process simulations, involving large strain, material nonlinearity and contact, have been conducted to assess the performance of the SHB elements.