This study presents a multi-director continuum beam finite element developed for efficient analysis of multi-layer strand cables. The beam element is derived from the continuum mechanics based beam formulation incorporating multi-directors and cross-sectional elements to describe the helical geometries of wires that constitute the strand cables. The main advantage of the present continuum beam formulation is that complex geometries of strand cable and inter-wire motions can be addressed in the framework of the beam kinematics regardless of the numbers of layers and subordinate helical wires. This approach enables simple modeling together with efficient analysis, and allows both geometric and material nonlinearities to be considered. In addition to its excellent accuracy, the proposed beam element model requires a significantly reduced number of degrees of freedom compared to conventional three-dimensional solid finite element models for cable analysis. Through several numerical examples, the predictive ability of the proposed beam model is demonstrated.

本研究提出了一种多向连续梁有限元，用于有效分析多层绞线电缆。梁单元源自基于连续介质力学的梁公式，其中包含多方向和横截面单元，以描述构成绞合缆线的线材的螺旋几何形状。本连续梁公式的主要优点是，无论层数和从属螺旋线的数量如何，都可以在梁运动学的框架中解决复杂几何形状的绞线电缆和线间运动。这种方法可以实现简单建模和高效分析，并允许同时考虑几何和材料非线性。除了其出色的准确性，与用于电缆分析的传统三维实体有限元模型相比，所提出的梁单元模型需要的自由度数显着减少。通过几个数值例子，证明了所提出的梁模型的预测能力。