• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.195-202
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• 2012

Two nonlinear frame elements taking into account geometric nonlinearity is presented and compared based on the Lagrangian co-rotational formulation. The first frame element is believed to be geometrically-exact because not only tangent stiffness matrices is exactly evaluated including stiffness matrices due to initial deformation but also total member forces are directly determined from total deformations in the deformed state. Particularly two exact tangent stiffness matrices based on total Lagrangian and updated Lagrangian formulation, respectively, are verified to be identical. In the second frame element, the deformed curved shape is regarded as the polygon and current flexural deformations in iteration process are neglected in evaluating tangent stiffness matrices and total member forces. Two numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy and the good performance of the first frame element compared with the second element. Furthermore it is shown that the first frame element can be used in tracing nonlinear behaviors of cable members.