Large deflection formulations of a simple beam element including shear deformations

A simple beam element is developed for the solution of large deflection problems. The total Lagrangian formulation is based on the kinematic relations proposed by Reissner for finite rotations and stretching as well as shearing of plane beams. The motion is discretized by linear expansions of the global displacement components and the cross‐sectional rotation in two‐dimensional Euclidean space yielding a simple beam element with three degrees of freedom at the two nodes. The shear locking is reduced by selective integration in order to eliminate the spurious shear constraint similar to interdependent variable interpolation. The large rotation formulation is compared with two forms of moderate rotation theories which have been used in the past to develop the geometric stiffness properties for linear stability analysis of the so‐called Mindlin plate elements. The predictive value of different geometric stiffness approximations is assessed with several examples which range from the static and kinetic stability analysis of the classical Euler‐column to the large deflection problem of a clamped beam.