Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

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Computers and Structures

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Geometrically nonlinear isogeometric analysis of a partly wrinkled

membrane structure
Kyoichi Nakashino a,⇑, Arne Nordmark b, Anders Eriksson b
a
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tokai University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan
b
KTH Mechanics, Royal Institute of Technology, Osquars backe 18, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: An isogeometric membrane element based on the non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) model is
Received 23 October 2019 presented that accounts for membrane wrinkling based on tension-field theory. First, the element is val-
Accepted 26 May 2020 idated by means of a benchmark problem involving a partly wrinkled membrane. It is then applied to the
Available online 18 June 2020
large deformation of a thin membrane structure using a two-stage procedure that combines dynamic
relaxation and Newton–Raphson iteration. A simple technique is introduced that takes advantage of
Keywords: the geometrical symmetry of an isogeometric analysis model by using a ‘‘one-sided” open knot vector
Membrane
to treat the continuity of the membrane surface with respect to the symmetry plane. Because NURBS
Isogeometric analysis
NURBS
has many suitable features for representing complex geometries, it enriches the function space of the
Dynamic relaxation membrane element. Consequently, the characteristic mechanical responses of membranes, such as deep
Tension-field theory folding, are captured appropriately by the present isogeometric membrane element. In addition, a
numerical example demonstrates that the convergence rate of the isogeometric membrane analysis with
respect to refinement of the discretization is much better when tension-field theory is introduced in the
analysis.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction highly refined mesh when the expected wrinkle wavelength

Membranes are used as major structural components in various
engineering fields. Examples include (i) tensile membrane struc-
tures in civil engineering, (ii) parachutes and inflatable wings in
aeronautical engineering, and (iii) solar sails and aerodynamic
inflatable decelerators in aerospace engineering. Because of their
high slenderness ratio, membranes wrinkle easily under the slight-
est compressive load as a result of localized buckling. Because such
wrinkles have a profound effect on the overall mechanical
response of the membrane, how to model wrinkling appropriately
is a key issue in designing lightweight structures that comprise
thin membranes. The formation of wrinkles can be predicted
numerically by means of finite element analysis using a shell ele-
ment that has a very small bending stiffness. When combined with
a suitable shell element, this approach yields excellent agreement
with experimental results [1–4]. However, the approach requires a
Abbreviations: DOF, degree of freedom; DR, dynamic relaxation; NR, Newton–
Raphson; NURBS, non-uniform rational basis spline; TF, tension field; IGA,
isogeometric analysis.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nakashino@tsc.u-tokai.ac.jp (K. Nakashino).
becomes small [5], thereby incurring high computational costs.
Another approach to membrane wrinkling is to use tension field
(TF) theory, which assumes that the wrinkled region of the mem-
brane forms a uniaxial tension state. In contrast to the approach
using a shell element, the membrane bending stiffness is neglected
completely in TF theory. Consequently, the exact wrinkle geometry
is discarded in TF theory, and the wrinkled region of the membrane
is represented instead by an averaged smoothed surface that forms
a uniaxial tension state in which the principal stress perpendicular
to the wrinkles is zero. TF theory was first introduced to explain
the post-buckling behavior of thin metal webs [6], after which it
was used to predict the wrinkling behavior of thin membranes;
several analytical solutions were presented for the wrinkling of
membranes with simple geometries and boundary conditions
[7–10]. Miller and Hedgepeth [11] first proposed an application
of TF theory to finite element analysis, where the uniaxial tension
state is realized with a modified elasticity matrix. After that, many
researchers developed various wrinkling models based on TF the-
ory and incorporated them into finite element analysis; these mod-
els include (i) those with a modified deformation gradient [12,13],
(ii) those with a modified constitutive law [14–17], (iii) those
involving the projection method [18,19], and (iv) those involving

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruc.2020.106302
0045-7949/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302
the relaxed strain energy method [20–22]. Although TF theory can-
not provide geometrical information about the wrinkles them-
selves, it reduces the computational cost remarkably and can be
used as a robust numerical tool to predict the mechanical response
of thin membranes.
Membranes exhibit another type of deformation in addition to
wrinkles; under certain loading conditions, deep folds can form
on the membrane surface. For example, referring to their experi-
mental results obtained from a series of physical test models, Con-
tri and Schrefler [23] showed that a thin square airbag formed both
folds and wrinkles upon being inflated. Another example is an
experimental study by Szyszkowski and Glockner [24] in which
thin spherical inflatable membranes were subjected to concen-
trated loads. At an advanced stage of deformation, they observed
that four or five deep folds formed on the spherical membrane,
emanating from the point at which the load was applied. The deep
folds observed in the aforementioned experiments are considered
to have a different origin from that of winkles; the folds are pre-
sumably formed to accommodate the geometrical differences
between the deformed and undeformed configurations of the
membrane. As such, finite element analysis based on TF theory
should be able to reproduce folding deformations because they
are not precluded by TF theory, which discards only the wrinkle
geometry. In this regard, numerical results that reproduce folding
deformation by means of finite element analysis based on TF the-
ory were presented previously [25] and compared with the exper-
iments performed by Contri and Schrefler [23] and Szyszkowski
and Glockner [24]. The numerical solutions therein were qualita-
tively consistent with the corresponding experimental results.
Recently, isogeometric analysis (IGA) [26] has been applied to
solve large deformation problems of thin shells based on a variety
of formulations (see, e.g., [27–34]), the applications of which
include a deformation analysis of biomembranes [32] and dynamic
cloth simulations [33,34]. IGA has also been used to predict the
nonlinear structural behavior of pure membranes (i.e., without
bending stiffness) [35–42]. Those studies include isogeometric
boundary representation (B-Rep) analysis [37], which is an exten-
sion of the original IGA. Additionally, an application of TF theory to
an isogeometric membrane element was presented with prelimi-
nary numerical results [43]. However, the potential benefits of
IGA for membrane-deformation problems require further investi-
gation because IGA enriches the function space to describe struc-
tural deformations thanks to the many NURBS features that are
suitable for representing complex geometries. For example, a
NURBS model can represent a highly continuous smooth surface
that is also allowed to have sharp folds. This property is particu-
larly advantageous when dealing with membrane structures that
form deep folds. A drawback of IGA is that a special treatment is
required in dealing with the continuity condition across patch
interfaces; the same situation arises when one attempts to reduce
the size of isogeometric models by taking advantage of symmetry
conditions.
The present paper addresses large-deformation problems of
partly wrinkled membranes in the IGA framework. Membrane
wrinkling is accounted for by incorporating TF theory into an iso-
geometric membrane element. Numerical results are presented
that include large deformations of a thin membrane involving fold-
ing deformations, something that previous studies did not address
[34–43]. To obtain equilibrium solutions with high accuracy, a
two-stage procedure is used that combines dynamic relaxation
(DR) and Newton–Raphson (NR) iteration. Additionally, a simple
modeling technique involving a ‘‘one-sided” open knot vector is
presented that helps to create a partial model that takes advantage
of the symmetries of the model geometry. This technique allows
one to endow the partial model with exactly the same continuous
properties as those of the entire membrane model.
The manuscript is organized as follows. In Section 2, some of the
basic properties of NURBS are reviewed briefly, followed by a
description of the isogeometric membrane element. Section 3
introduces the wrinkling algorithm that is used in the present
study. Section 4 describes the procedure for obtaining equilibrium
solutions. Section 5 presents the modeling technique whereby
symmetric boundary conditions are imposed on a partial model
of the entire membrane. Section 6 provides three numerical exam-
ples and discusses the numerical performance of IGA at solving
large-deformation problems of thin membranes.
2. NURBS-based isogeometric membrane element
2.1. Brief review of NURBS
A NURBS curve CðnÞ and a NURBS surface Sðn; gÞ in R3 are
represented, respectively, as
X
n
CðnÞ ¼ Ri ðnÞP i ; ð1Þ
i¼1
and
X
m
SðnÞ ¼ Ri ðn; gÞP i ; ð2Þ
i¼1
where Ri ðnÞ and Ri ðn; gÞ are rational basis functions for the NURBS
curve and the NURBS surface, respectively, and Pi are control points
storing homogeneous coordinates, i.e., Pi ¼ ½xi yi zi wi T , the last entry
of which represents the weight.
For NURBS curves and surfaces, there are two types of continu-
ity, namely C n continuity and Gn continuity. The former refers to
parametric continuity (i.e., continuity with respect to the parame-
ters n and g), whereas the latter refers to geometric continuity.
Details about NURBS and its implementation can be found, for
example, in the monograph by Piegl and Tiller [44]. Two important
properties of NURBS are listed below that are most relevant in this
work. Here, a basis function Ri ðnÞ is assumed to be of degree p and
 
associated with a knot vector N ¼ n1 ; n2 ;    ; nnþpþ1 .
P1. Domain: an effective domain of a NURBS curve with a knot
   
vector N ¼ n1 ; n2 ;    ; nnþpþ1 is npþ1 ; nnþ1 . Outside this range,
Pn
the partition-of-unity property i¼1 Ri ðnÞ ¼ 1 is violated.
P2. Strong convex-hull property: a NURBS curve C ðnÞ lies within
the convex hull of the control points P ip ;    ; P i for n 2 ½ni ; niþ1 Þ.
Fig. 1 shows the effect of the strong convex-hull property using
a quadratic NURBS curve C ðnÞ with a knot vector
N ¼ f0; 0; 0; 0:25; 0:5; 0:75; 1; 1; 1g. Because of property P2, a curve
segment fC ðnÞj0:25  n < 0:5g is contained in the convex hull of
the control points P2 , P3 and P4 , and a curve segment
fC ðnÞj0:5  n < 0:75g is contained in the convex hull of the control
points P3 , P4 and P5 . The resultant effects are shown in each panel
of Fig. 1 for different locations of control points P3 and P4 . Fig. 1(b)
shows a case in which P3 and P4 are located close together, produc-
ing a sharp bend around n ¼ 0:5. Fig. 1(c) shows the special case in
which P3 and P4 are coincident, whereupon the resulting curve is
G1 discontinuous at n ¼ 0:5. In Fig. 1(d), the locations of P3 and
P4 are interchanged, resulting in a curve with a loop. Properties
similar to those shown in Fig. 1 hold for NURBS surfaces; in this
case, the sharp bend in Fig. 1(b) is replaced by a deep fold on the
surface, and the G1 discontinuous curve in Fig. 1(c) is replaced by
a G1 discontinuous surface. The results shown in Fig. 1 suggest that
a NURBS surface can be deformed into a surface that has deep
folds, including G1 -discontinuous surfaces as a special case.
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 3

Fig. 1. Quadratic NURBS curve with knot vector N ¼ f0; 0; 0; 0:25; 0:5; 0:75; 1; 1; 1g. The locations of the two control points P3 and P4 are different in each figure. Because of the
strong convex-hull property, a curve segment fC ðnÞj0:25  n < 0:5g is contained in the convex hull of control points P2 , P3 and P4 , and a curve segment fC ðnÞj0:5  n < 0:75g
is contained in the convex hull of control points P3 , P4 and P5 . (a) Points P3 and P4 are placed apart from each other. (b) Points P3 and P4 are placed close together, forming a
sharp bend with high curvature around n ¼ 0:5. (c) Points P3 and P4 are coincident, forming a G1 discontinuous curve at n ¼ 0:5. (d) Points P3 and P4 are interchanged, forming
a loop.

2.2. NURBS-based isogeometric membrane element @xðr a Þ @

ga ¼ ¼ a ðXðr a Þ þ uðra ÞÞ; ð4Þ
@ra @r
This subsection establishes the basic equations to describe the where Xðr a Þ and xðr a Þ are the position vectors of a point on the
mechanical response of a thin membrane without wrinkling. A membrane mid-surface in the undeformed and deformed configu-
wrinkling algorithm is treated separately in Section 3, wherein it rations, respectively, and uðr a Þ is the displacement vector of that
is accounted for based on TF theory. Because the present point.
study focuses on structural analysis of thin membranes, the In the isogeometric approach, any point on the undeformed or
bending stiffness of the membrane is neglected throughout the deformed mid-surface of the membrane is approximated by the
derivation. NURBS-based shape functions introduced in Eq. (2), namely

2.2.1. Membrane kinematics and constitutive law X

m X
m
Xðn; gÞ ¼ Ri ðn; gÞPi ; uðn; gÞ ¼ Ri ðn; gÞui ; ð5Þ
The geometry of a membrane in the undeformed and deformed i¼1 i¼1
configurations are shown in Fig. 2. The convected coordinate sys-
tem ra ða ¼ 1; 2Þ is used to describe the geometry of the membrane where Pi and ui are the position vector and displacement vector,
mid-surface. Here and in what follows, Greek indices are supposed respectively, of the ith control point. The parametric coordinates
 
to run through values 1 and 2. ðn; gÞ in Eq. (5) are related to the convected coordinates r 1 ; r 2
The covariant basis vectors in the undeformed and deformed via a simple linear mapping.
configurations of the membrane are defined respectively as The contravariant basis vectors Ga and ga can be determined so
that the following relations are satisfied:
@Xðra Þ
Ga ¼ ; ð3Þ
@r a Ga  Gb ¼ dab ; ð6Þ

Fig. 2. Membrane deformation.

4 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

Z Z
ga  gb ¼ dab ; ð7Þ
DðdW int Þ½Du ¼ DðSÞ½Du : dEdV þ S : DðdEÞ½DudV; ð19Þ
B0 B0
where dab denotes the Kronecker delta (dab ¼ 1 for a ¼ b and dab ¼ 0
for a–b). The deformation gradient tensor is given by where DðÞ½Du is the directional derivative in the direction of the
a
incremental displacement Du [45]. Discretizing Eqs. (18) and (19)
F ¼ ga  G : ð8Þ using Eq. (5) yields the internal force vector and the tangent stiff-
The Green–Lagrange strain E of the membrane is then deter- ness matrix, respectively, used in the IGA.
mined by
1 T  2.2.3. External force
E ¼ Eab Ga  Gb ¼ F FI : ð9Þ In the numerical examples in Section 6, a body force and a pres-
2
sure load are dealt with as external forces exerted on the mem-
In the present study, linear isotropic elastic behavior is assumed brane. For the body force, the external virtual work dW ext is
for the membrane material, in which case the second Piola–Kirch- described as
hoff stress (PK2) S of the membrane can be obtained using the Z
usual linear elastic constitutive tensor C as dW bext ¼ b  dudV; ð20Þ
B0
S ¼ C : E; ð10Þ
where b is the external body force per unit volume and du is the vir-
or
tual displacement. The external force vector for the body force b can
Sab ¼ C abcd Ecd : ð11Þ be obtained by discretizing Eq. (20) using Eq. (5). The external vir-
tual work for the pressure load is described as
In Eq. (11), Sab and C abcd represent the contravariant compo-
Z
nents of S and C, respectively, i.e.,
dW pext ¼ pn  duds; ð21Þ
S
S ¼ Sab Ga  Gb ; ð12Þ
where p is the magnitude of the pressure load, n is a unit vector
C ¼ C abcd Ga  Gb  Gc  Gd : ð13Þ normal to the membrane surface, and S is the surface area of the
membrane in the deformed configuration. In terms of the convected
Usually, the components of the constitutive tensor C are  
coordinates r1 ; r 2 , the normal vector n and the infinitesimal sur-
expressed in terms of local orthonormal bases, in which case C is
face area ds can be written as
decomposed as
     1
C ¼ C abcd ea  eb  ec  ed ; ð14Þ n¼ g  g2 ; ð22Þ
kg1  g2 k2 1

where ea are orthonormal bases that are tangent to the membrane
surface. If the strain in the membrane is assumed to be sufficiently ds ¼ kg1  g2 k2 dr 1 dr 2 ; ð23Þ
small (this assumption does not exclude large displacements), then 2
 where k  k2 is the Euclidean norm or the L -norm of a vector. Sub-
the components C abcd can be expressed in the following familiar stituting Eqs. (22) and (23) into Eq. (21) yields
form: Z
2 3 2 3
  dW pext ¼ pdu  ðg1  g2 Þdr 1 dr 2 ; ð24Þ
C 1111 C 1122
C 1112 1 m 0
6   7 E 6 7
Ar
6 C 2211 C 2222 C 2212 7 ¼ 4 m 1 0 5; ð15Þ  
4 5 1  m2 where Ar is a domain in the parent space r 1 ; r2 corresponding to
  
C 1211 C 1222
C 1212 0 0 ð 1  m Þ=2 the surface area S. Discretizing Eq. (24) leads to the external force
vector for the pressure load.
where E and m are the Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the
membrane, respectively. The components C abcd in Eq. (13) can be

obtained from C abcd via a transformation of coordinates as 3. Wrinkling algorithm
       
C abcd ¼ C klpm ek  Ga el  Gb ep  Gc em  Gd : ð16Þ A suitable way to treat wrinkled membranes is to use TF theory,
in which a thin membrane is idealized as a membrane with zero
bending stiffness, implying also that it cannot resist compression.
2.2.2. Principle of virtual work The stress field after wrinkling is modeled as a uniaxial TF in which
The static equilibrium is stated in weak form as one principal stress is tensile and the other is zero; the principal
dW ¼ dW int  dW ext ¼ 0; ð17Þ axis of the former is in the wrinkling direction. This section sum-
marizes the modifications that are necessary to account for wrin-
where dW int and dW ext are the internal and external virtual work, kling in accordance with TF theory.
respectively, and d denotes the variation due to the virtual displace-
ment. In a total Lagrangian description of motion, the internal vir- 3.1. Wrinkling criteria
tual work dW int is expressed referring to the undeformed
configuration as TF theory postulates three different possible membrane states,
Z namely (i) taut, (ii) slack, and (iii) wrinkled. Hence, the membrane
dW int ¼ ðS : dEÞdV; ð18Þ stress state should be predetermined at a particular material point
B0
(or a Gaussian quadrature point in the case of practical numerical
where B0 is the volume occupied by the body in the undeformed calculations). In the present paper, the following criteria are
configuration. To solve the nonlinear equilibrium equation (17), employed that are accepted widely in other relevant studies,
one needs to linearize the internal virtual work dW int , namely namely
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 5

Smin > 0 ): taut Using the modified Green–Lagrange strain E0 , the modified PK2
Emax  0 ): slack ð25Þ stress S0 may be obtained as
otherwise ): wrinkled; 0
S ¼C:E:
0
ð30Þ
where Smin is the minimum principal value of the PK2 stress and Thus, the modified Cauchy stress 0
r is given as
Emax is the maximum principal value of the Green–Lagrange strain.
In the taut state, the equations presented in Section 2 require no 0 1 0 0 0
r ¼ F S F T: ð31Þ
modification. In the slack state, the modification is straightforward: detF0
all the components of the PK2 stress S and the elastic constitutive When the membrane is wrinkled, the following uniaxial stress
tensor C are simply set to zero. The following subsection focuses condition holds, namely
on the modifications that are required for the wrinkled state. 0
r w ¼ 0: ð32Þ
3.2. Modified constitutive tensor for wrinkled membrane
From Eqs. (26) and (31), the preceding condition is rewritten as
0
To date, many wrinkling models have been proposed based on S w0 ¼ 0: ð33Þ
TF theory, but it has been pointed out elsewhere that most of these
models are essentially the same [46,47]. This subsection reviews The vector w and the scalar b can be obtained by solving Eq.
briefly the wrinkling model presented by Nakashino and Natori (33). It is shown in Ref. [48] that once w and b are determined,
[48], in which the modified constitutive tensor accounting for the modified PK2 stress S0 can be obtained as
n 0o h 0i
wrinkling is derived from the wrinkling model due to Roddeman
S ¼ C fEg; ð34Þ
et al. [12]. The details of the derivation are subsequently omitted.
For technical details including aspects regarding computer imple- n 0o
mentation, see [48] or relevant studies by others [13,18,46,49,50]. where fEg and S are vector representations of the usual Green–
Roddeman et al. [12] proposed a wrinkling model in which the Lagrange strain tensor E and the modified PK2 stress S0 , respec-
deformation gradient tensor in wrinkled regions of a membrane is tively, namely
modified to produce a fictitious flat surface wherein out-of-plane T
deformations due to wrinkling are smoothed out. The modified
fEg ¼ ½ E11 E22 2E12  ;
 0 11 0 22 0 12 T
ð35Þ
0
deformation gradient tensor is described by fS g ¼ S S S ;
0 h 0i
F ¼ ðI þ bw  wÞF; ð26Þ and C is a matrix representation of the modified constitutive ten-
where w is a unit vector perpendicular to the wrinkle direction and sor that accounts for wrinkling, namely
the scalar b is the amount of elongation required to smooth out the 2 0 1111 0 0 3
wrinkles (see Fig. 3). The unit vector w and the scalar b are deter- h 0i C C 1122 C 1112
6 0 0 0 7
mined so that the stress field resulting from F0 reproduces the uni- C ¼ 4 C 2211 C 2222 C 2212 5: ð36Þ
0 1211 0 1222 0 1212
axial tension state. C C C
With the modified deformation gradient tensor F0 , the Green– h 0i
Lagrange strain of the membrane is recalculated as An explicit expression for C can be found elsewhere [48].
0 1  0T 0  1h i Equation (34) shows that membrane wrinkling can be accounted
E ¼ F F  I ¼ ðF þ bw  wÞT ðF þ bw  wÞ  I for by simply replacing the usual constitutive tensor ½C by the
2 2 h 0i
¼ E þ Ew ; ð27Þ modified constitutive tensor C . This modification scheme is used

where in the isogeometric membrane element in the present study.

1
Ew ¼ bð2 þ bÞw0  w0 ; ð28Þ 4. Solution procedures for nonlinear static equilibrium of thin
2
membranes
w0 ¼ wF ¼ FT w: ð29Þ
The present study deals with large-deformation problems of
The additional term Ew in Eq. (27) is the correction due to the partly wrinkled membranes. In the initial configuration, the mem-
wrinkling contraction. brane is assumed to be not strained at all, which results in the

Fig. 3. Wrinkled membrane and fictitious flat surface obtained by smoothing out the wrinkles.
6 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

absence of the out-of-plane stiffness. Hence, a direct application of
NR iteration method fails because of the singularity of the tangent
stiffness matrix. For this reason, a two-stage procedure is
employed for solving large-deformation problems of membrane
as follows.
For numerical efficiency, it is desirable to use a diagonal mass
matrix for M. Furthermore, M should be chosen to ensure numer-
ical stability during the time integration. Referring to Ref. [56], a
lumped mass matrix is used for M in which the diagonal entries
are determined by

1 X


(1) In the first stage, DR is performed to obtain an approximate
K ij

MI ¼ k max ð42Þ
solution to the set of equilibrium equations. In the DR 2 i2I j

method, the static equilibrium problem is replaced by a

pseudo dynamic problem and the equations of motion are where MI is the mass matrix at the Ith node (or the Ith control point
solved in time with an introduction of artificial inertia forces in the IGA framework), K ij are the elements of the stiffness matrix,
whereby circumventing the singular problem of the initially and i 2 I signifies that ith degree of freedom (DOF) is associated
unstrained membrane. When the residual error becomes with the Ith node. The parameter k in Eq. (42) is chosen to ensure
sufficiently small, the approximate solution is handed over numerical stability during the time integration; a typical range of
to the subsequent NR iteration process. k used in the present study is 0.6–2.0.
(2) In the second stage, the original set of equilibrium equations
is solved by the NR iteration method using the approximate
4.1.2. Kinetic damping
solution obtained in the first stage as an initial guess. Given
There are several variants of DR in terms of the damping used to
that the approximate solution obtained by the DR method is
suppress the pseudo dynamic motion. In the present study, the
sufficiently close to an equilibrium, the NR iteration is
pseudo damping matrix C in Eq. (37) is omitted, and instead kinetic
expected to stably converge with a few iteration steps.
damping is introduced, by which all the components of the velocity
vector u_ t are reset to zero when the kinetic energy of the system
The following subsections describe the DR method and the NR
reaches a local peak (see Fig. 4). In kinetic damping, the dynamic
iteration method that are specifically employed in the present
equation of motion (37) reduces to
study.
€ t þ Q ðut Þ ¼ Fðut Þ:
Mu ð43Þ
4.1. Dynamic relaxation
If the total kinetic energy of the system at time t is detected as
Otter [51] first introduced DR back in the mid-1960s for analyz- having decreased from that at the previous time step t  Dt, then
ing a pressure vessel, after which DR was extended to solve form- the kinetic energy is assumed to reach a local peak at time
finding problems of tension structures composed of nets and mem- t ð¼ t  Dt=2Þ, and the displacement vector ut and the velocity
branes [52–54]. See elsewhere for a detailed discussion of DR [55]. vector u_ t þDt=2 are recalculated as
The key idea of DR is to obtain a static equilibrium solution
through a pseudo-dynamic transient analysis, where the solution 3 1
ut ¼ utDt=2 ¼ utþDt  Dt u_ tþDt=2 þ ðDt Þ2 M1 ½Fðut Þ  Q ðut Þ
converges to one static equilibrium (out of possibly several ones). 2 2
In the present study, DR is used in the first stage of the numerical ð44Þ
calculation process to obtain an approximate static solution.
and
4.1.1. Equations of motion
In DR, a static solution of the problem is obtained by solving the Dt 1
u_ t þDt=2 ¼ M ½Fðut Þ  Q ðut Þ; ð45Þ
following pseudo-dynamic equation of motion: 2
€ t þ Cu_ t þ Q ðut Þ ¼ Fðut Þ
Mu ð37Þ whereupon the DR process proceeds to the next time step t  þ Dt
using Eqs. (39)–(41).
where M is the pseudo mass matrix, C is the pseudo damping
matrix, Q and F are the internal and external force vectors, respec-
tively, and ut is the displacement vector at time t. In a general set-
ting, the internal and external force vectors Q and F are described as
functions of the displacement vector ut , as in Eq. (37). If suitable
damping is introduced in Eq. (44), then the acceleration u € t and
the velocity u_ t converge to zero and the static equilibrium
Q ðut Þ ¼ Fðut Þ ð38Þ
is recovered in the final configuration.
In the present study, Eq. (37) is solved in time using an explicit
central finite-difference scheme, namely
u_ tþDt=2  u_ tDt=2
€t ¼
u ; ð39Þ
Dt

u_ tþDt=2 þ u_ tDt=2
u_ t ¼ ; ð40Þ
2

utþDt  ut
u_ tþDt=2 ¼ ; ð41Þ
Dt
where Dt is an arbitrarily chosen time step (in the present study, Fig. 4. Typical time history of kinetic energy during kinetic damping. The kinetic
Dt ¼ 1 is employed in all calculation cases). energy is damped out each time that a local peak is detected.
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302
4.1.3. Convergence criterion
The DR process is terminated when the following convergence
criterion is met, namely
kFðut Þ  Q ðut Þk2
< eDR ;
kFðut Þk2
where eDR is the relative admissible error. In the numerical calcula-
tions, the relative admissible error is set that eDR ¼ 105 103 .
Once Eq. (46) is satisfied, the calculation process is switched to
the subsequent NR iteration process to obtain the final equilibrium
solution of the system, if no displacement loading exists.
4.2. Newton–Raphson iteration
Using Eq. (5), the principle of virtual work given by Eq. (17) can
be discretized to yield the following nonlinear equilibrium equa-
tion, namely
Q ðuÞ ¼ FðuÞ;
where Q and F are the internal and external force vectors as func-
tions of the displacement vector u. Using NR iteration, the solution
to Eq. (47) is searched iteratively with
uiþ1 ¼ ui þ Dui ;
7
As an example, consider an initially flat square membrane
shown in Fig. 5(a). The membrane has two axes of symmetry,
which are depicted by the two mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0 in
the figure. Here, it is also assumed that the boundary conditions
ð46Þ and the loading conditions that are applied to the membrane have
the same symmetries as those of the membrane geometry, cf. [59].
In this case, only a quarter of the membrane [the gray area in Fig. 5
(a)] may be modeled by using its symmetries. A possible isogeo-
metric model is shown in Fig. 6(a), where the red circles are the
control points. In the figure, a quarter of the membrane is parame-
trized by bivariate quartic NURBS with the following open knot
vectors, namely
N ¼ H ¼ f0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3; 0:4; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5g:
The element representation of the isogeometric model of Fig. 6
(a) is shown in Fig. 5(b), where the quarter part of the membrane is
divided by 5  5 NURBS surface elements. A plausible boundary
condition for this isogeometric model is that the boundary control
ð47Þ points [enclosed by the solid frame in Fig. 6(a)] are constrained
either in the x or y direction. However, this boundary condition
is insufficient if considering the surface continuity across the two
mirror planes. For an explanation, consider the case that the entire
membrane is modeled using the bivariate quartic NURBS surface.
ð48Þ In that case, the resultant surface is C 3 continuous along the ele-
ment boundaries except for the external borders of the model.
 1
@Q
Du i ¼ ½Fðui Þ  Q ðui Þ; ð49Þ
@u
where ui is the estimated solution at the ith step, Dui is the correc-
tor for the next step, and @Q =@u is the tangent stiffness matrix of
the system. In the first step of the NR iteration, the approximate
solution of u obtained in the preceding DR method is used as the
initial guess. Similar to the DR process, the following convergence
criterion is used to terminate the NR iteration, namely
kFðui Þ  Q ðui Þk2
< eNR ; ð50Þ
kFðui Þk2
where ui is the estimated solution at the ith step and eNR is the rel-
ative admissible error for the equilibrium equation (47). The rela-
tive admissible error is set that eNR ¼ 1010 in all the following
numerical calculations. When Eq. (50) is met, the NR iteration stops
and the final equilibrium solution is obtained. In example 3 in Sec-
tion 6, a uniform pressure force is dealt with as the external force
exerted on the membrane surface, in which case the load stiffness
matrix for the pressure force is introduced into Eq. (49) to improve
the convergence of the NR iteration [45,57]. In general, the resulting
load stiffness matrix is not symmetric in element level. However, it
can be shown that the symmetric property is recovered in the fully
assembled stage for a class of problems that satisfy certain bound-
ary conditions [57,58]. As example 3 treated in Section 6 is catego-
rized into this class of problem, only the symmetric part of the
element load stiffness matrix is assembled into the global stiffness
matrix. Finally, note that the NR iteration used in the present study
seeks directly the solution for a final load level; no incremental pro-
cedure such as load control, displacement control, etc. is required in
the present setting.
5. C n -continuous boundary conditions with respect to mirror
plane
A structure often possesses some form of geometrical symme-
try. As in finite element analysis, one can take advantage of such
symmetry and perform IGA by modeling only part of the entire
structure. However, one must be cautious when dealing with a par-
tial model in the IGA framework.
However, the present quarter model has different continuity prop-
erties from those of the entire model. More specifically, if the quar-
ter model is reflected with respect to the two mirror planes, then
the resultant surface fulfills only C 0 continuity across the mirror
planes. To be fully consistent with the entire model, the quarter
model should be given C 3 continuous properties across the mirror
planes.
Related to the surface continuity with respect to the symmetry
plane, Kiendl et al. and others used the second-row strategy to ful-
fill G1 -continuous conditions [27,28,60]. In this technique, G1 con-
tinuity is achieved by making the displacements of the control
points along (i) the symmetric boundary and (ii) the neighboring
row equal. If the second-row strategy is applied to the present set-
ting, the displacements of control points PM and PS in Fig. 6(a), for
example, should be mutually constrained by
ðuM Þx ¼ ðuS Þx ; ðuM Þz ¼ ðuS Þz ; ð51Þ
where uM and uS are the displacements of PM and PS , respectively.
The second-row strategy can be extended to enforce higher
G-continuous conditions. However, the resulting relations become
much more complicated, involving the control points in the third,
fourth, and subsequent rows.
In the present study, we propose another method for dealing
with continuity across symmetry planes (or the mirror planes in
the present context). In Fig. 6(b), the same quarter part of the
membrane is discretized by bivariate quartic NURBS. However, this
model uses the following two ‘‘one-sided” open knot vectors,
namely
N ¼ H ¼ f0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3; 0:4; 0:5; 0:6; 0:7; 0:8; 0:9g:
Note that the effective domain of the new quarter model is
fðn; gÞj0  n  0:5; 0  g  0:5g because of property P1 in Sec-
tion 2.1, and consequently the new quarter model has the same
element representation as that of the preceding quarter model of
Fig. 6(a). Note also that in Fig. 6(b), some of the control points
are excluded from the quarter domain because of using one-
sided open knot vectors. Hereinafter, such excluded control points
are referred to as ‘‘shadow” control points. The quarter model of
Fig. 6(b) can be constructed by first creating the isogeometric
model for the entire square membrane and then extracting only
8 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

Fig. 5. Initially flat square membrane with two symmetry planes (mirror planes): (a) entire membrane with two mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0; (b) element representation of
quarter of membrane. In the present case, the quarter model is represented by 5  5 NURBS surface elements.

Fig. 6. Quarter model of initially flat square membrane discretized by bivariate quartic NURBS: (a) quarter part modeled using two open knot vectors; (b) quarter part
modeled using two one-sided open knot vectors with introduction of shadow control points. Both models involve 5  5 NURBS surface elements with quartic basis functions
[see Fig. 5(b)].

those control points that influence the quarter domain, along with
the associated knot values (see Fig. 7). As such, the displacements
of all the shadow control points are dictated by the mirroring con-
ditions with respect to the two mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0. For
example, the displacements of the three shadow control points
PS1 , PS2 , and PS3 in Fig. 6(b) are determined from that of the master
control point PM as
2 3 2 3 2 3
ðuM Þx ðuM Þx ðuM Þx
6 7 6 7 6 7
uS1 ¼ 4 ðuM Þy 5; uS2 ¼ 4 ðuM Þy 5; uS3 ¼ 4 ðuM Þy 5;
ðuM Þz ðuM Þz ðuM Þz
where uS1 , uS2 , uS3 , and uM are the displacements of PS1 , PS2 , PS3 , and
PM , respectively. In the present study, the displacement constraints
for the shadow control points, as denoted in Eq. (52), are imposed
strictly on the equilibrium equation by eliminating all redundant
DOFs therein.
In certain cases, an isogeometric model with shadow control
points may include those that are located directly on the mirror
planes. Fig. 8 shows such a situation: quarter of the membrane is
discretized by 5  5 quintic NURBS surface elements with shadow
control points, where 15 of the control points are located directly
on the mirror plane x ¼ 0 or y ¼ 0. In these circumstances, addi-
tional constraints are introduced to restrict the movements of
these control points to the corresponding mirror plane.
Finally, note that the present technique introduces C n continuity
into the model, which is in contrast to the second-row strategy
that imposes G1 continuity on the model. The difference between
the two technique is elaborated as follows:
(1) The second row strategy is associated with an open knot
ð52Þ
vector. In this case, the first and the last control points are
interpolated, and the C 1 continuity at the beginning and
the end of the knot vector can be extended to a G1 continuity
by restricting the movements of the two first rows of the
control points.
(2) The proposed technique utilizes a one-sided open knot vec-
tor. As a result, more rows of control points are introduced
that influence the geometry at the end (or beginning) of
the knot vector and that are not interpolating the geometry.
Higher order than C 1 parametric continuity can be achieved
by restricting the movements of the additionally introduced
control points.
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 9

6.1. Example 1: Annular membrane under torsion

First, a simple two-dimensional problem is considered to verify

the present TF membrane model. An annular membrane of thick-
ness t is attached to a rigid hub along its inner edge and to a guard
ring along its outer edge (see Fig. 9). The membrane is pre-
tensioned by a uniform stress r0 . The rigid hub is rotated by a
moment M through an angle /. As the moment M increases, so
wrinkles begin to grow from the inner hub out to radius R as
depicted in Fig. 9. The following parameters are chosen for this
example: Young’s modulus E ¼ 1GPa; Poisson’s ratio m ¼ 1=3;
inner radius a ¼ 0:2m; outer radius b ¼ 1m; membrane thickness
t ¼ 1mm; uniform stress r0 ¼ 1MPa.
This problem has served as a benchmark to validate various
wrinkling algorithms in the finite-element context
[13,14,18,48,62,63]. Mikulas [8] presented an analytical solution
of the problem and showed that the relationship between the
wrinkle radius R and the prescribed moment M is governed by
 
1 1 B 2
þ  ln  ¼ 0; ð53Þ
A B A 3

2

 a2 2  
C 1  1 þ 2C 1 R4 þ M 2 ¼ 0; ð54Þ
Fig. 7. Isogeometric model for entire square membrane. The entire membrane is
b
discretized by 10  10 quartic NURBS surface elements using two open knot vectors
( " #)2  !2
N ¼ H ¼ f0; 0; 0; 0; 0; 0:1; 0:2; 0:3; 0:4; 0:5; 0:6; 0:7; 0:8; 0:9; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1g. Enclosed by   1a2 
 M
the solid lines are those control points that influence the quarter domain (the gray C2 ¼ Rþ  þ 2R C1 þ  ; ð55Þ
area in the figure). R b R
where
 
M ¼ M=2pa2 r0 t; R ¼ R=a;
     ð56Þ
A ¼ C 2 =M 2  1; B ¼ R2 C 2 =M2  1:
The preceding equations were derived by assuming that the
Poisson’s ratio of the membrane equals 1=3. The relationship
between the moment M and the angle of twist / of the hub is gov-
erned by
 "    #
 3M 1=R2  1 B 1 8 a2 5
/¼   þ ln þ  þ ; ð57Þ
8 1  a2 =b
2 B A R2 3 b 3

where

Fig. 8. Quarter model of initially flat square membrane with shadow control points.
The quarter part is represented by NURBS surface elements with quintic basis
functions. The element representation of this model is the same as those of Fig. 6(a)
and (b). In this case, some of the control points are located directly on the mirror
planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0.

6. Numerical examples

In this section, three numerical examples are analyzed with the

isogeometric membrane element based on TF theory. The results in
this paper were obtained using an IGA code implemented in
MATLAB with the help of the NURBS toolbox developed originally
by Spink et al. [61]. Fig. 9. Annular membrane under torsion.
10 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

 
3E/
/¼ : ð58Þ direction for R ¼ 1:2, 1:6, and 2:0. The numerical values of the min-
2
4r0 ð1  a2 =b Þ imum principal stress r2 are sampled at Gaussian quadrature
The maximum and minimum principal stresses r1 and r2 , points and are plotted in Fig. 11, which shows the good agreement
respectively, of the membrane can be expressed as between the numerical and analytical results. As expected, the
8 
minimum principal stress r2 vanishes in the region r < R.
  
> C2 = r
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
r1 < C M 2 =r2 ;
> r<R
2
¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð59Þ 6.2. Example 2: Initially flat square membrane subjected to uniform
r0 > >
: 
2
2    
2C 2 ða=bÞ þ 1 þ C 1 þ M 2 =r 2 ; r
R upward body force

8   The second example comprises the deformation of an initially

> r<R
r2 < 0; rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi flat square membrane. The membrane is fixed along all four of
¼ ð60Þ its edges and is subjected to a uniform upward body force (see
r0 >  2 
: 2C ða=bÞ2 þ 1  C þ M 2 =r2 ; r
R

1 1 Fig. 12). The membrane is assumed to be a square with a side
length of 1m and a thickness of 0:1mm. The Young’s modulus
where
and Poisson’s ratio of the membrane are E ¼ 2GPa and m ¼ 0:3,

r ¼ r=a; ð61Þ respectively, and a uniform body force of 108 N=m3 is applied in
the z direction.
and r is the radial distance from the center of the hub.
This example is provided to illustrate the application of C n -
An isogeometric discretization for this problem is shown in
continuous boundary conditions as discussed in Section 5. In this
Fig. 10, where one quarter of the annular membrane is discretized
example, the membrane has two mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0,
with 20  20 quadratic NURBS surface elements with two open
thereby enabling one to model only a quarter of the membrane.
knot vectors. The axisymmetric nature of the annular membrane
For this problem, the following three different isogeometric models
is accounted for in the isogeometric model through multi-
are provided, all of which use bivariate cubic NURBS functions to
freedom constraints imposed on the control points along the line
represent the geometry of the membrane surface:
segments AB and DC in Fig. 10. Note that the C n -continuous bound-
ary condition presented in Section 5 is not applied in the present
(1) model 1: full model in which the entire membrane is repre-
case; the problem here is axisymmetric, and the membrane does
sented by 6  6 NURBS surface elements using two open
not possess any mirror planes as described in Section 5.
knot vectors;
IGA for this problem is performed as follows. First, a uniform
(2) model 2: a quarter model with 3  3 NURBS surface ele-
stress r0 is prescribed and then replaced by equivalent nodal dis-
ments using two open knot vectors. The second-row strategy
placements imposed on the control points along the outer edge.
Second, a certain value of the wrinkle radius R is given, and the is used to guarantee G1 continuity across the two mirror
twisting angle / corresponding to the given R is calculated from planes;
Eqs. (53)–(58). The calculated angle / is then applied to the isoge- (3) model 3: a quarter model with 3  3 NURBS surface ele-
ometric model as displacements of the control points along the ments using two one-sided open knot vectors. For this
inner edge. Because the problem is two dimensional, no singularity model, a series of shadow control points are introduced so
arises because of the absence of out-of-plane stiffness. Conse- that the model is C 2 continuous across the two mirror
quently, the two-stage procedure described in Section 4 is not planes.
required for this problem, and the solution is obtained instead by
using NR iteration alone. Because cubic NURBS bases are used, model 1 represents a
Following the procedure just described, numerical analyses are C 2 -continuous surface across element boundaries except for the
performed for three different values of the wrinkle radius. Fig. 11 four borders of the model. From this point of view, model 3 may
shows the distribution of the m principal stress r2 along the radial be regarded as an equivalent quarter model to model 1 in that both

Fig. 10. NURBS parametrization for annular membrane (20  20 quadratic NURBS
surface elements). Fig. 11. Minimum principal stress versus radial distance.
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 11

Fig. 12. Problem setting of initially flat square membrane subjected to uniform
body force.

Fig. 14. Comparison of cross sections at y = 0 plane in deformed configuration.

models possess the same degree of continuity along the two mirror
planes, whereas in model 2 the degree of continuity is decreased
by one across the mirror planes.
The membrane has no out-of-plane stiffness in its initial config-
uration because no pretension is assumed to be introduced in the
initial membrane. Consequently, the problem needs to be solved
with a combination of DR and NR iteration as described in
Section 5.
Fig. 13 shows the deformed shapes of the membrane obtained
using the three models. The red circles therein are the control
points of the NURBS surfaces including the shadow control points
introduced in model 3. Note that although models 2 and 3 have
the same number of control points, model 3 has slightly fewer
DOFs because the C 2 -continuous conditions across the mirror
planes introduce additional constraints into the equilibrium equa-
tion. Fig. 14 compares the cross sections of the deformed mem-
brane at the y ¼ 0 plane as predicted by the three models. As
expected, model 3 reproduces the results of model 1, whereas
the deflection curve for model 2 deviates slightly from those for
the other two models. The results show that model 3 preserves
exactly the symmetry properties of the entire model (i.e., model
1), including the continuous conditions of the surface. Note that
a part model using shadow control points always provides iden-
tical results to the corresponding full model as long as the full
model yields symmetric results. The cross-sectional profiles
shown in Fig. 14 for model 1 (full model) and model 3 (a quarter
model with shadow control points) are essentially identical
within numerical accuracy.
6.3. Example 3: Inflation of a square airbag
This example has been studied by many researchers either with
or without the wrinkling algorithm including the one discussed in
this paper but mostly based on finite element method
[13,17,19,23,25,35,62–68]. Of those previous studies, the one by
Chen et al. [35] is particularly relevant: the inflation of a square air-
bag was studied by means of an isogeometric membrane element
with the use of DR. In the present paper, the same problem is stud-
ied but with many more DOFs using the shadow-control-point
technique. In addition, membrane wrinkling is accounted for based
on TF theory. This example clarifies the differences between the
results obtained with and without the wrinkling algorithm in the
IGA framework.
The problem setting is that an initially flat square airbag with a
side length of 1m and a thickness of 0:1mm is inflated by a uniform
internal pressure load. The Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of
the membrane are E ¼ 2 GPa and m ¼ 0:3, respectively, and the
magnitude of the pressure load is 5000Pa. For this problem, one
eighth of the membrane is modeled because of the symmetry
(i.e., a quarter of the upper half of the square airbag). The boundary
conditions of the partial model are shown in Fig. 15. With respect
to the two mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0, C p1 -continuous bound-
ary conditions are imposed by introducing shadow control points,
where p denotes the degree of NURBS representing the membrane
surface. The square airbag has another mirror plane (i.e., the z ¼ 0

Fig. 13. Deformed shapes of initially flat square membrane subjected to upward uniform body force: (a) entire membrane is discretized by 6  6 NURBS surface elements
(model 1); (b) a quarter part with G1 -continuous boundary conditions is discretized by 3  3 NURBS surface elements using two open knot vectors (model 2); (c) a quarter
part with C 2 -continuous boundary conditions is discretized by 3  3 NURBS surface elements using two one-sided open knot vectors and shadow control points (model 3). All
the models are represented by a bivariate cubic NURBS surface. For (b), the second-row strategy is used to guarantee G1 -continuity across the two mirror planes.
12 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

Fig. 15. Boundary conditions for one-eighth model of square airbag.
plane), but the airbag is G1 discontinuous with respect to the z ¼ 0
plane at the outset. Consequently, the control points along the
sides of the square are simply constrained in the z direction. For
the same reason as in example 2, the problem needs to be solved
with a combination of DR and NR iteration.
Fig. 16 shows the inflated shape of the square airbag for three
different refinement levels (10  10, 20  20, and 30  30 elements
for one eighth of the entire membrane), each of which was
obtained using an isogeometric membrane element with bi-
quartic NURBS basis functions. The results obtained with the isoge-
ometric model without the wrinkling algorithm are shown in the
upper row of Fig. 16, while those obtained with the isogeometric
model using the wrinkling algorithm are shown in the lower
row; in what follows, the former model is referred to as the non-
TF model and the latter as the TF model. With the non-TF model,
wrinkle-like deformation patterns appear along the four sides of
the square airbag, resulting from the local buckling due to the in-
plane compression. Overall, the characteristic wavelength of the
wrinkles decreases with the total number of DOFs; the same phe-
nomenon was observed in other studies [20,35,65,68]. By contrast,
the inflated shapes predicted by the TF model have a much
smoother surface. As formulated in Section 3, the TF model
smooths out the contraction due to wrinkling via the modified
deformation gradient tensors, producing a uniaxial tension state
in the wrinkled regions. In addition, a closer look reveals that the
inflated shapes predicted with the TF model have several folding
lines on the sides of the airbag; this issue will be discussed later
in this subsection.
Fig. 17 shows a typical history of the relative residual norm and
kinetic energy during the DR and subsequent NR iteration. The
kinetic energy is damped out by Eqs. (44) and (45) each time that
a local peak is detected. For the results in Fig. 17, the DR process
was terminated after 5765 iterations, at which point the relative
residual norm had decreased below the prescribed threshold value

Fig. 16. Inflated shape of square airbag solved by isogeometric membrane model without tension-field (TF) theory (upper row) with (a) 10  10, (b) 20  20, and (c) 30  30
surface elements, and isogeometric membrane model based on TF theory (lower row) with (d) 10  10, (e) 20  20, and (f) 30  30 surface elements. All the models are
discretized by a bi-quartic NURBS surface, and C 3 -continuous boundary conditions are applied across the symmetry planes by introducing shadow control points. The inflated
surfaces are shaded using the rendering features of the NURBS toolbox [61].
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 13

of eDR ¼ 104 . The subsequent NR iterations converged stably in model, eminent wrinkle-like deformations are observed in the
four steps, resulting in the final relative residual norm of middle of each side of the airbag. However, Fig. 20(a) and (b) show
kF  Q k2 =kFk2 ¼ 2:27  1012 . that both the maximum and minimum principal stresses fluctuate
The deep folding lines observed on the deformed membranes as all over the sides of the airbag, and significant amount of compres-
predicted with the TF model are examined further in Figs. 18 and sive stresses develop therein. It is confirmed from variation of the
19. Fig. 18 shows one eighth of the inflated shape of the airbag curvature along the side edge that wrinkle-like deformations occur
obtained with the TF model using 40  40 bi-quartic NURBS ele- in the entire region of the side part of the membrane, although
ments, where a few folding lines are observed on the membrane they are not clearly visible. As mentioned earlier, the characteristic
surface. To clarify the location and intensity of the folding defor- wavelength of the wrinkle-like deformations is related to a refine-
mations, the cross-sectional profile of the curve AB is plotted in ment level of the discretization, i.e., the wavelength decreases with
Fig. 19 with variation of the curvature. A clear spike in the curva- increasing refinement level. As such, the wrinkle-like deformations
ture at x ¼ 0:054 indicates that a sharp folding deformation
occurs at this location. Besides, the curvature has a slight peak at
x ¼ 0:202, indicating an additional mild folding formed on the
membrane. An increase in the curvature in the neighborhood of
point A is attributable to the bulge shape formed at the square cor-
ner, and not resulting from a folding line. In addition, note that the
variation of the curvature shown in Fig. 19 is C 1 continuous even at
the two peaks, because the cross-sectional profile of the curve AB
comprises a C 3 -continous curve. Fig. 19 attests to the fact that iso-
geometric NURBS elements can reproduce sharp folding deforma-
tions despite the highly continuous properties (in the present
case, NURBS of degree p ¼ 4 is used to represent the surface). As
shown in Ref. [47], even when using TF theory the predicted aver-
aged wrinkled surface has an inherent short wavelength instability
under pressure loading, and the folding deformations observed
herein could possibly be caused by this pressure-induced instabil-
ity, provided that the discretization is fine enough to resolve these
wavelengths. Therefore, the present problem is expected to possess
multiple equilibria even for the same pressure value, and each
Fig. 18. Inflated shape of square airbag solved by TF model using 40  40 bi-quartic
result shown in Fig. 16 was obtained as an arbitrary solution
NURBS elements. Only a one-eighth model is displayed. C 3 -continuous boundary
among those multiple solutions. Thus, the results shown in Figs. 18 conditions are imposed with respect to the mirror planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0.
and 19 must be interpreted with care especially regarding the loca-
tion and the number of the folding lines. Which solution is
obtained depends largely on the DR process in the numerical calcu-
lations. For example, choosing a different value of k in Eq. (42)
often leads to a qualitatively similar but different inflated shape
of the square airbag in both cases with and without the wrinkling
algorithm.
Fig. 20 shows the principal stress distributions of the square
airbag predicted with non-TF and TF models. Both models use a
bi-quartic NURBS surface with 40  40 elements, and the
C 3 -continuous boundary conditions with respect to the mirror
planes are applied using shadow control points. With non-TF

Fig. 17. Typical histories of relative residual norm and kinetic energy of a system.
The relative residual norm decreases rapidly after the calculation switches to Fig. 19. Cross-sectional profile of curve AB indicated in Fig. 18 with variation of
Newton–Raphson iteration (after 5765 iteration steps in the present case). curvature.
14 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

Fig. 20. Principal stress distributions of square airbag obtained with bivariate quartic NURBS surface with 40  40 elements, where C 3 -continuous boundary conditions with
respect to the mirror planes are applied using shadow control points: (a) maximum principal stress predicted with non-TF model; (b) minimum principal stress predicted
with non-TF model; (c) maximum principal stress predicted with TF model; (d) minimum principal stress predicted with TF model. For comparison, the upper limit of the
contour range is set to be equal in (a) and (c) and in (b) and (d). In (a), the stress distribution at the sides of the airbag is incomplete because the stress exceeds the contour
upper limit.

obtained by the non-TF model should be considered as an artifact
of the discretization. The actual geometry of the wrinkles can be
predicted only with the use of shell models that account for small
but non-negligible bending stiffness. With the TF model, compres-
sive stresses are released in the entire region of the airbag, result-
ing in a smoother stress distribution except along the folding lines
indicated in Fig. 19. Results shown in Fig. 20(d) reveal that the min-
imum principal stress vanishes in a large part of the airbag and
thus the uniaxial tension state is realized there. The distribution
of the uniaxial tensile stress is displayed as the maximum principal
stress distributions in the corresponding area of Fig. 20(c). Results
show that the uniaxial tensile stress is remarkably small along the
folding lines. Of the four folding lines per side, the inner two form a
sharp fold (see, Fig. 19) and the decrease in the uniaxial tensile
stress is manifest along them. Hence, it can be concluded that
the decrease in the uniaxial tensile stress is larger along shaper
folding lines. Moreover, the folding lines appear only in the area
under the uniaxial tension state. This is reasonable, because it is
well expected that the in-plane membrane stress vanishes in the
direction perpendicular to folding lines.
As mentioned earlier, the present problem is expected to pos-
sess multiple equilibria even for the same pressure value. Fig. 21
shows two results of the inflated shapes of the airbag obtained
by TF models using 40  40 bi-quartic NURBS elements for the
same pressure load, but with a different value of the parameter k
(k ¼ 0:6 in case of Fig. 21(a), and k ¼ 1:0 in case of Fig. 21(b)). An
eminent fold is formed at a different location in each result,
indicating the multiplicity of the solution for the present problem.
In case of non-TF models, different wrinkle-like deformations are
obtained depending on the DR process.
Owing to the presence of multiple solutions, evaluation of the
convergence with respect to refinement of the discretization is
not straightforward. The convergence property of the IGA solution
with the TF model is examined in Fig. 22, where the cross-sectional
profile of the curves AC and AB (see Fig. 18) are plotted for different
refinement levels of a bi-quartic NURBS surface. Fig. 22(a) shows
that the results for 30  30 and 40  40 surface elements almost
coincide, indicating that the profile of the curve AC, which tra-
verses over the smoothed part of the deformed membrane, tends
to converge toward a single curve. Contrastingly, the profile of
the curve AB is clearly different even between the results for
30  30 and 40  40 surface elements (see Fig. 22(b)), reflecting
the differences in the location of a deep fold, which, however,
can vary even for the same level of the discretization (see
Fig. 21). A similar tendency as shown in Fig. 22 is observed for
the convergence property of the non-TF models, though the con-
vergence rate of the curve AC is slower compared to the TF models.
Results suggest that, despite of the presence of multiple solutions,
the convergence rate for the solution may be evaluated by exclud-
ing the influences of folding/wrinkle-like patterns. In this study,
the convergence rate of the IGA solution is evaluated in a simple
pointwise fashion, i.e., the vertical displacement at the top center
of the airbag is measured with respect to the number of DOFs,
and the result of which is shown in Fig. 23. The figure shows that
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302 15

Fig. 21. Inflated shape of the airbag obtained by TF models using 40  40 bi-quartic NURBS elements for the pressure load of 5000Pa with (a) k ¼ 0:6, and (b) k ¼ 1:0. Only a
one-eighth model is displayed.

Fig. 22. Comparison of cross-sectional profiles of curves AC and AB (see Fig. 18) for different refinement levels. The results are obtained by TF model using bi-quartic NURBS
elements (i.e., NURBS degree of p ¼ 4). The horizontal direction is scaled by a factor of three in both figures to make the differences more visible.

Fig. 23. Convergence properties of vertical displacement at top center of square airbag: (a) non-TF models; (b) TF models.
16 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302

Table 1
Comparison of total number of iterations in DR process and total computational time for different NURBS degree.

NURBS degree NURBS surface elements DOFs non-TF model TF model

DR iterations Time [s] DR iterations Time [s]
Quadratic 30  30 2822 2368 957 6661 2303
40  40 4962 3817 2343 5452 4088
Cubic 30  30 2945 2917 2222 6217 5273
40  40 5125 4870 6067 7173 9502
Quartic 30  30 3009 4077 7809 7983 16,092
40  40 5209 5765 11,218 6402 12,554

Fig. 24. Self-penetration of membrane observed in TF model with 30  30 surface elements: (a) inflated shape of square airbag (top view); (b) cross-sectional profile of
inflated shape. In the present case, G1 -continuous boundary conditions with respect to the two mirror planes are applied using the second-row strategy. The inflated shape is
different from that obtained using shadow control points [see Fig. 16(f)].

the convergence of the vertical displacement with non-TF models
is much slower compared to that with TF models. With non-TF
models, the convergence with quadratic NURBS is slightly worse,
while cubic and quartic NURBS elements perform almost compara-
bly. With TF models, no remarkable difference is observed among
the results for NURBS of the three different degrees. However,
the resultant folding patterns are different in each degree, reflect-
ing the multiplicity of the solution.
From a practical perspective, it may be advisable to avoid
increasing the degree unnecessarily given the associated increase
in computational time. Table 1 summarizes the number of DR iter-
ations and the total computational time required for the calcula-
tions to converge using 30  30 and 40  40 NURBS elements.
Results show no clear dependence of the number of DR iterations
on the number of DOFs or NURBS degree. However, a general ten-
dency is observed that more computational time is required for
models with higher NURBS degree. In the present numerical calcu-
lations, most of the computational time is spent on performing DR
process, dominant part of which is the evaluation of the internal
and external force vectors at Gauss quadrature points. In this
regard, recently emerging technology, IGA collocation (IGA-C)
method [69–71], is expected to be particularly effective in reducing
the computational cost for solving the present problems, especially
for NURBS models with higher degrees. Moreover, the numerical
performance of IGA-C is further facilitated by the use of an adap-
tive approach [72]. The performance of IGA-C when applied to
DR process is definitely an interesting topic and should be investi-
gated in future studies.
Finally, note that the deformed shape of the airbag is affected by
the continuous boundary conditions applied on the two mirror
planes x ¼ 0 and y ¼ 0. Fig. 24 shows the inflated shape of the air-
bag as predicted with the TF model using 30  30 bi-quartic NURBS
elements, where G1 boundary conditions are applied by the
second-row strategy with respect to the two mirror planes. The
inflated shape is different from that obtained using the shadow-
control-point technique whereby C 3 continuity is introduced with
respect to the mirror planes (see Fig. 16(f)). In Fig. 24(b), self-
penetration of the membrane involving a high degree of curvature
appears at the mirror boundaries, where the degree of surface con-
tinuity is decreased locally by two. Owing to the complexity of
multiple solutions, one cannot conclude that self-penetration is
directly attributable to the reduced continuity. However, the two
techniques lead to different discretized systems, and naturally
result in different solutions even when the isogeometric model
has many DOFs.
7. Conclusions
Isogeometric membrane formulations have been presented that
account for wrinkling based on TF theory. The derived isogeometric
membrane element is particularly suitable for structural analysis
of thin membranes, and its validity is verified by comparing with
the analytical solution. For analyzing membrane structures
with symmetry, a simple numerical technique is introduced with
the use of shadow control points, thereby a partial model of the
 K. Nakashino et al. / Computers and Structures 239 (2020) 106302
membrane is endowed with exactly the same continuous proper-
ties as those of the entire membrane model regardless of the
NURBS degree. Although the geometry configurations of the pre-
sented examples are simple (i.e., all the models are composed of
an initially flat membrane), the deformed shapes of the membrane
in the last example exhibit complex geometries forming a wrinkle-
like surface (in case of non-TF model) or a surface with folds (in
case of TF models). Thus, the advantages of the isogeometric con-
cept are fully exploited in the present numerical calculations in
efficiently capturing complex geometries.
From the numerical examples, the following observations are
made.
(1) Despite the highly continuous properties of NURBS func-
tions, the isogeometric membrane element can reproduce
folding deformations when combined with TF theory.
(2) The inflated shapes predicted with the TF model comprise a
smooth surface with compressive stresses released in the
entire region. The results are reasonable for thin mem-
branes. By contrast, large compressive stresses remain in
some of the side parts of the airbag when IGA is performed
using the non-TF model.
(3) The TF model performs much better compared to the non-TF
model in terms of convergence rate with respect to refine-
ment level of the solution space, while no distinctive corre-
lation is observed between the NURBS degree and the
convergence rate except that quadratic NURBS elements
perform slightly worse with non-TF models. Because a
higher NURBS degree leads to higher computational cost, it
may be advisable to avoid increasing the former unnecessar-
ily in membrane-deformation problems.
(4) The continuous boundary conditions introduced in a partial
model of the membrane influence the resultant membrane
deformations even when the isogeometric model has many
DOFs. The second-row strategy and the shadow-control-
point technique lead to different discretized systems and
naturally result in different solutions.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was performed while K.N. was hosted as a visiting
researcher at KTH Mechanics, Royal Institute of Technology. He
would like to thank KTH for offering him an excellent research
environment during the period.
Funding
This work was supported partially by a JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-
Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research [grant no. JP17K18941].
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