Harmonic axisymmetric thick shell element for static and vibration analyses

Abstract

In this study, a new harmonic axisymmetric thick shell element for static and dynamic analyses is proposed. The newly proposed element considering shear strain is based on a modified Hellinger-Reissner variational principle, and introduces additional nodeless degrees for displacement field interpolation in order to enhance numerical performance. The stress parameters selected via the field-consistency concept are very important in formulating a trouble-free hybrid-mixed elements. For computational efficiency, the stress parameters are eliminated by the stationary condition and then the nodeless degrees are condensed out by the dynamic reduction. Several numerical examples confirm that the present element shows improved efficiency and yields very accurate results for static and vibration analyses.