Stress projection for membrane and shear locking in shell finite elements (Q1067862)

Since the discovery that reduced integration could lead to more accurate results, there has been a desire to exploit this fact. But with reduced integration one must face the danger of instability. Stress projections offer a rational way of constructing elements with reduced integration but no danger of instability. This is shown in this paper for the shell element, so that the locking phenomenon may be avoided, which may make coarse meshes useless.