Design and development of a discontinuous Galerkin method for shells (Q2384249)

The authors present design and development of a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for linear shell problems. Discontinuous approximations for displacement and stress fields are employed as independent unknowns. The bilinear quadrilateral finite element is used as an example; however, the proposed formulation is general and extendible to elements of other types and orders. Two different formulations of the elements themselves are considered, one with equal-order approximations for displacement and stresses, and the other with modified stresses. The numerical results for Scordelis-Lo roof, twisted beam and pinched cylinder indicate that the DG approach can lead to significant improvements if the inter-element interface properties are selected properly. However, a rational method of such selection and the associated error estimates are yet under investigation.