Blended isogeometric shells

We propose a new isogeometric shell formulation that blends Kirchhoff–Love theory with Reissner–Mindlin theory. This enables us to reduce the size of equation systems by eliminating rotational degrees of freedom while simultaneously providing a general and effective treatment of kinematic constraints engendered by shell intersections, folds, boundary conditions, the merging of NURBS patches, etc. We illustrate the blended theory’s performance on a series of test problems.