A strain smoothing formulation for NURBS-based isogeometric finite element analysis

A strain smoothing formulation for NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) based isogeometric finite element analysis is presented. This approach is formulated within the framework of assumed strain methods and strain smoothing operations. The strain smoothing is defined through strain averaging in the element sub-domains which are subsequently used for numerical integration of the Galerkin weak form. This formulation satisfies the orthogonality condition of the assumed strain methods. Meanwhile the present formulation totally avoids the gradient computation of the rational NURBS basis functions in the formulation of stiffness matrix. A transformation method is employed to accurately enforce the displacement boundary conditions. Numerical results demonstrate that the present formation gives very satisfactory solution accuracy simultaneously with improved computational efficiency.