Dynamic response of aerospace structures by means of refined beam theories

The present paper is devoted to the investigation of the dynamic response of typical aerospace structures subjected to different time-dependent loads. These analyses have been performed using the mode superposition method combined with refined one-dimensional models, which have been developed in the framework of the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF). The Finite Element Method (FEM) and the principle of virtual displacements are used to compute the stiffness and mass matrices of these models. Using CUF, one has the great advantage to obtain these matrices in terms of fundamental nuclei, which depend neither on the adopted class of beam theory nor on the FEM approximation along the beam axis. In this paper, Taylor-like expansions (TE), Chebyshev expansion (CE) and Lagrange expansion (LE) have been employed in the framework of CUF. In particular, the latter class of polynomials has been used to develop pure translational displacement-based refined beam models, which are referred to as Component Wise (CW). This approach allows to model each structural component as a 1D element. The dynamic response analysis has been carried out for several aerospace structures, including thin-walled, open section and reinforced thin-shells. The capabilities of the proposed models are demonstrated, since this formulation allows to detect shell-like behavior with enhanced performances in terms of computational efforts.