An efficient, fully coupled beam model is developed to analyse laminated composite thin-walled structures with arbitrary cross-sections. The Euler–Lagrangian equations are derived from the kinematic relationships for a One-Dimensional (1D) beam representing Three-Dimensional (3D) deformations that take into account the cross-sectional stiffness of the composite structure. The formulation of the cross-sectional stiffness includes all the deformation effects and related elastic couplings. To circumvent the problem of shear locking, exact solutions to the approximating Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) are obtained symbolically instead of by numerical integration. The developed locking-free composite beam element results in an exact stiffness matrix and has super-convergent characteristics. The beam model is tested for different types of layup, and the results are validated by comparison with experimental results from literature.
