Deteriorated Geometrical Stiffness for Higher Order Finite Elements with Application to Panel Flutter

Higher order elements were first design for linear problems where, in certain situations, they present advantages over the lower order elements. A method to efficiently extend their use to geometrical nonlinear problems as panel flutter and postbuckling behavior is presented. The chaotic and limit-cycle oscillations of an isotropic plate are obtained based on direct integration of the discretized equation of motion. The plate is modeled using the von Karman theory and the geometrical nonlinearities are separated in a nonlinear term of the first kind which manifests especially in the prebuckling and buckling regimes, and a nonlinear term of the second kind which is responsible for the postbuckling behavior. A fifth order, fully compatible element has been used to model thin plates while the inplane loads where introduced through a membrane element. The aerodynamics was modeled using the first order 'piston theory. The method introduces the concept of a deteriorated form of the second geometric matrix which is equivalent to neglecting higher order terms in the strain energy of the plate. This allows for a drastic reduction in the computational effort with no observable loss of accuracy. Well established results in the literature are used to validate the method.