A HYBRID TREFFTZ FLAT SHELL ELEMENT

We suggest a linear elastic flat shell element based on the HT(hybrid Trefftz) method. We formulate the membrane part of the proposed element as an HT plane element with the drilling DOF. For the bending part, we developed a thick HT plate element that can represent transverse shear deformations accurately. Because we derive both the membrane and the bending parts consistently using the HT functional, we can easily construct the triangular and the quadrilateral elements in a unified way. In addition, warping of quadrilateral element is compensated by force and moment equilibrium equations. We evaluate the performance of the new element in terms of accuracy and convergence.