Analysis of slender beam structures in a three-dimensional space is widely applicable in mechanical and civil engineering. This paper presents a new procedure to determine the reference coordinate system of a beam element under large rotation and elastic deformation based on a newly introduced physical concept: the zero twist sectional condition, which means that a non-twisted section between two nodes always exists and this section can reasonably be regarded as a reference coordinate system to calculate the internal element forces. This method can avoid the disagreement of the reference coordinates which might occur under large spatial rotations and deformations. Numerical examples given in the paper prove that this procedure guarantees the numerical exactness of the inherent formulation and improves the numerical efficiency, especially under large spatial rotations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.