Abstract:The Kirchhoff kinetic analogy is generalized from thin elastic rods to thin elastic shells. The generalization makes thin shell deformations physically correspond and mathematically equivalent to rigid body motions. Hence theories and methods of rigid body dynamics can be applied to investigate deformations of thin elastic shell, and also provide a novel discretization for continuous thin elastic shells. An orthogonal spatial axis system is established along the coordinate lines of the middle surface under the straight normal assumption. The moving of the axis system along the coordinate lines in unit velocity forms its "angular velocity", which is the curvature-twist vector with two independent variables. The curvature-twist vector along two coordinate lines expresses the deformation and the configuration of a thin elastic shell. It is demonstrated that curvature-twist vectors are compatible, and curvature-twist vectors and tangential vectors of middle surface are compatible. Nonholonomic constraints and differential equations of middle surfaces are established in the Euler angles and the Lam\acutee coefficient form. The strain, the stress and the internal forces are formulated in the curvature-twist vectors and the Lam\acutee coefficients. The equilibrium partial differential equations are presented with distributed internal forces intensity of thin elastic shells. The forms of the equations are similar to the Euler equations of rigid body dynamics and Kirchhoff equations of thin elastic rods. The fact means that the Kirchhoff kinetic analogy of thin elastic rods is generalized to thin elastic shells. The analogy relations between thin elastic shells and dynamics of rigid body or thin elastic rods are concluded. Finally, an example is given to show the application of this method. The proposed analogy leads to novel views and approaches to model and to analyze deformation of thin elastic shells. It is possible to generalize further the analogy for dynamics of thin elastic shells.