Implementation of a modified Hughes-Liu shell into a fully vectorized explicit finite element code

Operation counts are given for our fully vectorized explicit implementation of the shell element developed by Hughes and co-workers. We have dropped reduced/selective integration in favor of reduced integration augmented by an hourglass viscosity. As a consequence, for four integration points through the thickness, execution speed is 100..mu..s per surface element cycle on the Cray-1 compared to 140..mu..s for four brick elements. In addition, the explicit time step will be from four to many times larger than for brick modeling. 17 refs., 4 figs.