Numerical modeling of elastic waves in thin shells with grid-characteristic method

Abstract: Numerical modeling of strength and non-destructive testing of complex structures such as buildings, space rockets or oil reservoirs often involves calculations on extremely large grids. The modeling of elastic wave processes in solids places limitations on the grid element size because resolving different elastic waves requires at least several grid elements for the characteristic size of the modeled object. For a thin plate, the defining size is its thickness, and a complex structure that contains large-scale thin objects requires a large-scale grid to preserve its uniformity. One way to bypass this problem is the theory of thin plates and shells that replaces a simple material model on a fine three-dimensional mesh with a more complex material model on a coarser mesh. This approach loses certain fine effects inside the thin plate, but allows us to model large and complex thin objects with a reasonable size calculation grid and resolve all the significant wave types. In this research, we take the Kirchhoff-Love material model and derive a hyperbolic dynamic system of equations that allows for a physical interpretation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The system is solved numerically with a grid-characteristic method. Numerical results for several model statements are compared with three-dimensional calculations based on grid-characteristic method for a three dimensional elasticity.