Long-term stable time integration scheme for dynamic analysis of planar geometrically exact Timoshenko beams

In this paper, an energy-momentum method for geometrically exact Timoshenko-type beam is proposed. The classical time integration schemes in dynamics are known to exhibit instability in the non-linear regime. The so-called Timoshenko-type beam with the use of rotational degree of freedom leads to simpler strain relations and simpler expressions of the inertial terms as compared to the well known Bernoulli-type model. The treatment of the Bernoulli-model has been recently addressed by the authors. In this present work, we extend our approach of using the strain rates to define the strain fields to in-plane geometrically exact Timoshenko-type beams. The large rotational degrees of freedom are exactly computed. The well-known enhanced strain method is used to avoid locking phenomena. Conservation of energy, momentum and angular momentum is proved formally and numerically. The excellent performance of the formulation will be demonstrated through a range of examples.