Isogeometric shell analysis: The Reissner–Mindlin shell

A Reissner–Mindlin shell formulation based on a degenerated solid is implemented for NURBS-based isogeometric analysis. The performance of the approach is examined on a set of linear elastic and nonlinear elasto-plastic benchmark examples. The analyses were performed with LS-DYNA, an industrial, general-purpose finite element code, for which a user-defined shell element capability was implemented. This new feature, to be reported on in subsequent work, allows for the use of NURBS and other non-standard discretizations in a sophisticated nonlinear analysis framework.