AVI as a mechanical tool for studying dynamic and static beam structures

In this paper we study the dynamic behavior of an isotropic Kirchhoff- Love beam and investigate the equilibrium position of an Euler-Bernoulli beam. Using the discrete Euler-Lagrange and Lagrange-d’Alembert principles, we simulate the behavior by means of variational integrators and, in particular, AVIs (Asynchronous Variational Integrators). We place special emphasis on the geometric structure underlying stress resultant beam models and propose B-spline shape functions for AVI-method.