To cite this version:Vuong-Dieu Trinh, Farid Abed-Meraim, Alain Combescure. A new assumed strain solid-shell formulation "SHB6" for the six-node prismatic finite element. Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, 2011, 25 (9) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AbstractThis paper presents the development of a new prismatic solid-shell finite element, denoted SHB6, obtained using a purely threedimensional approach. This element has six nodes with displacements as the only degrees of freedom, and only requires two integration points distributed along a preferential direction, designated as the "thickness". Although geometrically three-dimensional, this element can be conveniently used to model thin structures while taking into account the various phenomena occurring across the thickness. A reduced integration scheme and specific projections of the strains are introduced, based on the assumed-strain method, in order to improve performance and to eliminate most locking effects. It is first shown that the adopted in-plane reduced integration does not generate "hourglass" modes, but the resulting SHB6 element exhibits some shear and thickness-type locking. This is common in linear triangular elements, in which the strain is constant. The paper details the formulation of this element and illustrates its capabilities through a set of various benchmark problems commonly used in the literature. In particular, it is shown that this new element plays a useful role as a complement to the SHB8PS hexahedral element, which enables one to mesh arbitrary geometries. Examples using both SHB6 and SHB8PS elements demonstrate the advantage of mixing these two solid-shell elements.

This paper is concerned with the development of a new family of solidshell finite elements. This concept of solid-shell elements is shown to have a number of attractive computational properties as compared to conventional three-dimensional elements. More specifically, two new solid-shell elements are formulated in this work (a fifteen-node and a twenty-node element) on the basis of a purely three-dimensional approach. The performance of these elements is shown through the analysis of various structural problems. Note that one of their main advantages is to allow complex structural shapes to be simulated without classical problems of connecting zones meshed with different element types. These solid-shell elements have a special direction denoted as the "thickness", along which a set of integration points are located. Reduced integration is also used to prevent some locking phenomena and to increase computational efficiency. Focus will be placed here on linear benchmark problems, where it is shown that these solid-shell elements perform much better than their counterparts, conventional solid elements.