Assumed strain stabilization of the eight node hexahedral element (Q2368286)

Herein a stabilization procedure based on material properties and element geometry is developed by the assumed strain method and an operator orthogonal to constraint strain fields for \(n\)-point quadrature eight- node hexahedral elements. The element has more robust hourglass control than the perturbation stabilization of \textit{D. P. Flanagan} and \textit{T. Belytschko} [Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 17, 679-706 (1981; Zbl 0478.73049)]. The element uses the same mean-volumetric gradient evaluation and \(y\)-vector which is orthogonal to linear fields originated by Flanagan and Belytschko. The major improvement has been to use an assumed strain approach to develop the stabilization forces. This avoids the need for user-set parameters and provides more robust hourglass control. Only two assumptions have been made: (i) The spin is constant within the element; (2) the material response tensor \(c\) is constant within the element. Three-dimensional nonlinear problems tax the resources of most computers because meshes with sufficient resolution to achieve reasonable accuracy often require hours of computer time even with explicit methods. Therefore the design of elements that provide a good compromise between efficiency and accuracy is of considerable importance in facilitating such computations. The symmetric displacement gradient of the trilinear element is projected onto assumed strain field so that the element is very accurate in coarse mesh, elastic bending and does not break for an incompressible material. It is easily programmed in an explicit code for nonlinear materials and is relatively insensitive to element distortion so long as the element aspect ratio remains reasonably small. The assumed strain field is also used with four-point integration which does not require stabilization. Robustness of the element is demonstrated with the help of a number of example problems. In addition, two forms of the \(B\)-matrix are studied and it is shown that the mean form is more efficient since it passes the patch test in a simplified form. The stabilization procedure developed is new and is of great interest to people working in numerical and computer models in structural mechanics.