ANCF curvature continuity: application to soft and fluid materials

The continuity of the position-vector gradients at the nodal points of a finite element mesh does not always ensure the continuity of the gradients at the element interfaces. Discontinuity of the gradients at the interface not only adversely affects the quality of the simulation results, but can also lead to computer models that do not properly represent realistic physical system behaviors, particularly in the case of soft and fluid material applications. In this study, the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) finite elements are used to define general curvature-continuity conditions that allow for eliminating or minimizing the discontinuity of the position gradients at the element interface. For the ANCF solid element, with four-node surfaces, it is shown that continuity of the gradients tangent to an arbitrary point on a surface is ensured as the result of the continuity of the gradients at the nodal points. The general ANCF continuity conditions are applicable to both reference-configuration straight and curved geometries. These conditions are formulated without the need for using the computer-aided-design knot vector and knot multiplicity, which do not account properly for the concept of system degrees of freedom. The ANCF curvature-continuity conditions are written in terms of constant geometric coefficients obtained using the matrix of position-vector gradients that defines the reference-configuration geometry. The formulation of these conditions is demonstrated using the ANCF fully parameterized three-dimensional solid and tetrahedral elements, which employ a complete set of position gradients as nodal coordinates. Numerical results are presented in order to examine the effect of applying the curvature-continuity conditions on achieving a higher degree of smoothness at the element interfaces in the case of soft and fluid materials.