A novel upper bound finite-element for the limit analysis of plates and shells (Q1982372)

Shear-locking is a classical issue in displacement-based finite element approaches for thick plates and shells. Previous variants of discretizations in locking-free finite element methods for thick plates were relied on mixed approaches or on approximate strain compatibility relations or on discontinuous interpolations. A finite element (FE) with a continuous quadratic displacement and a piecewise linear rotation is investigated here. It was shown that this FE can produce good limit load estimates taking into account the contribution of rotation jumps. Numerical results have a good accuracy. This FE is used also for shell problems. Illustrative applications show that the proposed FE is free from any shear locking and produces good limit load estimates for plate as well as shell problems.