Development of eight-node quadrilateral membrane elements using the area coordinates method

Abstract

Two eight-node quadrilateral elements, namely, AQ8-I and AQ8-II, have been developed using the quadrilateral area coordinate and generalized conforming methods. Some appropriate examples were employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed elements. The numerical results show that the proposed elements are superior to the standard eight-node isoparametric element, thereafter called Q8. This is because the former does not only possess the same accuracy as the latter when regular meshes are employed for analysis, but is also very insensitive to mesh distortion, for which the Q8 element can not handle. It has also been demonstrated that the area coordinate method is an efficient tool for developing simple, effective and reliable serendipity plane membrane elements.