Sharif Digital Repository

Structures of tapered geometry are customarily used in a variety of applications. The analysis of such structures is usually made through finite element method using traditional beam, shell or brick elements. In this paper, a new tapered superelement is presented that lends itself to modeling revolving geometries under lateral, axial and torsional loads. The presented tapered superelement has 16 nodes. The performance of this element under static and dynamic loading and in rotating condition is examined. It is shown that this element yields accurate results with higher computational efficiency compared to conventional elements. Furthermore, it is verified that a single tapered superelement...