Cylindrical Shell Finite Elements

This paper is a continuation of SAE Paper 2006-01-1227 “Three-Dimensional FEM Beam Elements”, which describes development of the elements static linear mathematical formulations based on Thin-Walled Beam theory, which is in reality Thin-Walled Cylindrical Shell theory. Applications of the thin-walled open and closed cross sections elements developed in Paper 2006-01-1227, both in linear and nonlinear/crash simulations, are the focus of this paper. Those elements are considered more correctly refer to as cylindrical shell instead of beam elements. The computational efficiency advantages of using cylindrical shell instead of or with plane shell elements are described and illustrated in this paper.