On the Co-rotational Beam Element Formulation in Large Deformation Analysis

This paper sheds more light on the co-rotational element formulation for beams with uniform cross-section. The co-rotational elements are commonly used in problems in which a structure undergoes a large deformation. In this study, the foregoing element obeys the Euler-Bernoulli beam assumptions. Unlike the formulations presented in the literature, in this paper, a number of local nodal coordinates are employed which makes the kinematic description of the deformed beam much easier without the need of expressing any complicated relations. In this regard, via a case study, the methodology is implemented step-by-step, and the results are compared with the ones calculated analytically and by means of elliptic integrals. The methodology is briefly formulized for 3D cases as well.