Geometrically nonlinear analysis of thin-walled structures using efficient Shell-based SPH method

•New shell-based SPH model using only 1 layer of particles at the shell mid-surface.•SSPH model based on Reissner–Mindlin theory, accounting for transverse shearing.•Vector parameterization of rotations for the treatment of very large 3D rotations.•CPU time savings compared to the classical continuum SPH method.•Better results with the new SSPH model compared to the classical continuum SPH.

In this paper a shell-based meshless formulation is proposed for the geometrically nonlinear analysis of thin-walled structures using an explicit dynamics scheme based on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. In the present investigation the SPH method is modified to deal with shell-like structures, while keeping its character of a strong formulation based on the principle of collocation directly applied on the differential equilibrium equations. The current SPH formulation is an extension of the continuum-improved and stabilized SPH method allowing a thin structure to be modeled using only one layer of particles to represent the shell mid-surface. Application of the present Shell-based SPH (SSPH) formulation for the analysis of several benchmarks including geometrically nonlinear behavior shows its validity and its potential especially in terms of CPU time saving while keeping a very good level of accuracy compared to the classical SPH method and to the Finite Element method.