On the robustness of the Q4 membrane element

摘要

Post treatment of assumed stress membrane finite elements through penalized equilibrium isdiscussed; for elements of irregular geometry, it is shown that enforcement of penalized equilibrium in the limitresults in complete loss of stiffness in higher order deformation modes. For the displacement based Q4 membranefinite element with bi-linear interpolation, elemental parameters are then introduced to soften the higher orderdeformation modes, and render the element bending-exact.