A stabilized hybrid-stress solid element for geometrically nonlinear homogeneous and laminated shell analyses

Abstract

This paper presents an eighteen-node solid element for geometric nonlinear analysis of shells. Starting from a stress-resultant approach, a modified generalized laminate stiffness matrix is developed. The matrix resolves not only thickness locking but also some abnormalities encountered in laminate analysis by the existing remedies of thickness locking. To formulate the stabilization scheme, a hybrid functional with independently assumed stress-resultant and displacement is derived. The salient feature of the present element is that the stabilization vectors can be programmed explicitly without using any integration loops. A number of commonly employed benchmark problems are attempted and the results are close to other state-of-the-art elements. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.