• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.41-61
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• 1998

A state-of-the-art report on the new finite elements formulated by the addition of nonconforming displacement modes has been presented. The development of a series improved nonconforming finite elements for the analysis of plate and shell structures is described in the first part of this paper. These new plate and shell finite elements are established by the combined use of different improvement schemes such as; the addition of nonconforming modes, the reduced (or selective) integration, and the construction of the substitute shear strain fields. The improvement achieved may be attributable to the fact that the merits of these improvement techniques are merged into the formation of the new elements in a complementary manner. It is shown that the results obtained by the new elements give significantly improved solutions without any serious defects such as; the shear locking, spurious zero energy mode for the linear as well as nonlinear benchmark problems. Recent developments in the transition elements that have a variable number of mid-side nodes and can be effectively used in the adaptive mesh refinement are presented in the second part. Finally, the nonconforming transition flat shell elements with drilling degrees of freedom are also presented.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.475-484
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• 2000

In this paper, new additional nonconforming modes for the improvement of bending behavior in the distorted 8 node hexahedral element and their effective modification method are studied. The rotational degrees of freedom are introduced by using a functional in which the rotations are independent variables. In an element formulation, the same interpolations are used in displacement and rotation fields, but nonconforming modes we applied only in displacement fields. To verify the developed element various numerical tests are carried out and test results show good behavior.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.37-52
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• 2012

In this study, a new 4-node general shell element with 6 DOFs per node is presented. Drilling rotational degrees of freedom are introduced by the variational principle with an independent rotation field. In formulation of the element, substitute transverse shear strain fields are used to avoid shear locking, while four nonconforming modes are applied in the in-plane displacement fields as a remedy for membrane locking. In addition, a direct modification method for nonconforming modes is employed in the numerical implementation of nonconforming modes to represent constant strain states. A 9-points integration rule is adopted for volume integration in the computation of the element stiffness matrix. With the combined use of these techniques, the developed shell element has no spurious zero energy modes, and can represent a constant strain state. Several numerical tests are carried out to evaluate the performance of the new element developed. The test results show that the behavior of the elements is satisfactory.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 1993

A new three-dimensional transition solid element was presented for the automated three-dimensional adaptive h-refinement or the local mesh refinement where the steep stress gradient exists. The proposed transition element was established by adding variable nodes(element nodes) to basic 8-node for an effective connection between the refined region and the coarse region with minimum degrees of freedom possible. To be consistent in accuracy with 8-node solid element with nonconforming modes, this transition element was also improved through the addition of the modified nonconforming modes. Numerical examples show that the performance of the element and the applicability to 3D adaptations are satisfactory.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.179-188
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• 1997

A 4-node element for efficient finite element analysis of plate bending is presented in this paper. This element is formulated based on Mindlin plate theory to take account of shear deformation. To overcome the overestimation of shear stiffness in thin Mindlin plate element, especially in the lower order element, five nonconforming displacement modes are added to the original displacement fields. The proposed nonconforming element does not possess spurious zero-energy mode and does not show shear locking phenomena in very thin plate even for distorted mesh shapes. It was recognized from benchmark numerical tests that the displacement converges to the analytical solutions rapidly and the stress distributions are very smooth. The element also provides good results for the case of high aspect ratio.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1993.04a
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• pp.3-10
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• 1993

A new three-dimensional transition solid elements was presented for the automated three-dimensional adaptive h-refinement where the steep stress gradient exists. To be consistent with 8-node solid element with nonconforming modes in accuracy, these transition elements were improved through the addition of the associated nonconforming modes. Numerical examples show that the performance of the element and the applicability to 3D adaptations are satisfactory.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 1985

By the combined use of reduced integration and addition of nonconforming displacement modes, a highly effective new plate element has been established. The displacement field of this element was formed by adding nonconforming modes only to transverse displacement component of Ahmad-Irons' element and the element matrices are computed by the numerical integrations with modified orders. Comparing with other elements, the superiority of the both NC 8-4.1 and NC 8-5.1 elements over the elements previously studied has been observed. The solutions with these elements converge to the true solutions very rapidly as the mesh is refined. These elements are also shown to be applicable to the wide range of thick and very thin plate problems.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.325-340
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• 1995

The iterative procedure to use the nonconforming elements in elasto-plastic problems is established and applied to the variable node transition solid element developed for the automated three-dimensional local mesh refinement. Through numerical tests, the validity and performance of the element are examined. As the nonlinear iterative procedure presented in this paper is accomplished for the general three-dimensional case, it can also be easily applied to the two-dimensional elements such as membranes, plates and shells.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 1988

The present work is concerned with the improvement of finite element for the analysis of plate bending structures. The element formulation is based upon Mindlin plate concept. The displacement field of this element is formed by adding nonconforming modes to two rotational displacement components of a 'heterosis plate element. The element has the requisite numbers of zero eigenvalues associated with rigid body modes to avoid the spurious zero energy mode. It is shown that the results obtained by the element converged to the exact solutions very rapidly as the mesh is refined and exhibited reliable solutions through numerical studies for standard benchmark problems. This element is shown to overcome the shear locking problem completely in very thin plate situation even for irregular meshes.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.27-34
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• 1998

A versatile flat shell element has been developed by combining a membrane element with drilling degree-of-freedom and a plate bending element. This element is formulated by the enhanced displacement field with the additional non-conforming displacement modes. Thus the element possesses six degrees-of-freedom (DOF) per node which permits an easy connection to other six DOF elements as well as the improvement of the element behavior. In plate bending part, this element is established by the combined use of the addition of non-conforming modes, the reduced (or selective) integration scheme, and the construction of the substitute shear strain fields. The achieved improvement may be attributable to the fact that the merits of these individual techniques are merged into the new element in a complementary manner. In membrane part, this element shows better membrane behavior as the nonconforming displacement mode is added to drilling mode.