Research Projects

In the field Finite Element Analysis, the geometry of the structure plays a very crucial role. Recently Mishra & Barik [9, 10, 11, 12] have coined a new method called NURBS-Augmented Finite Element Method (NAFEM) for the static, free vibration and buckling analyses of bare as well as stiffened plates of arbitrary geometries. The idea behind the present formulation originated from the concepts of Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) and NURBS-Enhanced Finite Element Method (NEFEM). In IGA, the geometry and the displacement fields are represented with the NURBS basis function. As the NURBS basis functions are non-interpolating in nature they do not satisfy the Kronecker-Delta property which leads to the difficulty in enforcing the essential boundary conditions. In NEFEM, only the geometry of the elements which are at the boundaries of the plate are represented by NURBS basis function whereas the displacement function of the boundary elements are taken as piece-wise polynomials. The rest of the elements which are not intersecting the boundaries are dealt with usual classical finite element techniques. Here in this present work, the NURBS basis functions are incorporated to represent the geometry and its weakness for representing the field variables is avoided by adopting classical finite element known as ACM (Adini, Clough and Melosh) plate bending basis functions for the feld variables. The same method can be extended for the static analysis of bare composite plates.