THE METHOD OF COMBINING SUPER FINITE ELEMENTS AND SUBSTRUCTURES FOR ANALYSIS OF LATTICE-INTERSECTED THREE-DIMENSIONAL RETICULATED MEGA-STRUCTURES

In this paper, a simplified analysis method of combining super finite elements and substructures is presented and studied for reticulated mega-structure in which the main-structure is lattice-intersected three-dimensional system. To reduce the calculation time, the main-structure is discretized using super element of three nodes and substructures of large grids. The super element stiffness matrix and the stiffness contribution of substructures to the whole structure are developed. It is shown that the calculating time of the present method is reduced significantly in comparison with complete finite element analysis and accurate results are obtained. The present method can also consider the load-bearing contribution of the sub-structures. It is a superior analysis method for the reticulated mega-structures.