A resultant 8-node solid-shell element for geometrically nonlinear analysis

Abstract.A new resultant force formulation of 8-node solid element is presented for the linear and nonlinear analysis of thin-walled structures. The global, local and natural coordinate systems were used to accurately model the shell geometry. The assumed natural strain methods with plane stress concept were implemented to remove the various locking problems appearing in thin plates and shells. The correct warping behavior in the very thin twisted beam test was obtained by using an improved Jacobian transformation matrix. The 2 × 2 Gauss integration scheme was used for the calculation of the element stiffness matrix. From the computational viewpoint, the present solid element is very efficient for a large scale of nonlinear modeling. A lot of numerical tests were carried out for the validation of the present 8-node solid-shell element and the results are in good agreement with references.