A large deformation finite element for pipes conveying fluid based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation

A novel pipe finite element conveying fluid, suitable for modeling large deformations in the framework of Bernoulli Euler beam theory, is presented. The element is based on a third order planar beam finite element, introduced by Berzeri and Shabana, on basis of the absolute nodal coordinate formulation. The equations of motion for the pipe-element are derived using an extended version of Lagrange's equations of the second kind for taking into account the flow of fluids, in contrast to the literature, where most derivations are based on Hamilton's Principle or Newtonian approaches. The advantage of this element in comparison to classical large deformation beam elements, which are based on rotations, is the direct interpolation of position and directional derivatives, which simplifies the equations of motion considerably. As an advantage Lagrange's equations of the second kind offer a convenient connection for introducing fluids into multibody dynamic systems. Standard numerical examples show the convergence of the deformation for increasing number of elements. For a cantilever pipe, the critical flow velocities for increasing number of pipe elements are compared to existing works, based on Euler elastica beams and moving discrete masses. The results show good agreements with the reference solutions applying only a small number of pipe finite elements.