Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.

178 (1999) 2337

www.elsevier.com/locate/cma

An alternative assumed strain method

Luo Yunhua, Anders Eriksson *
Structural Mechanics group, Department of Structural Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Received 31 July 1998

Abstract
In this paper, an Alternative Assumed Strain (AAS) method is put forward, on the basis of a previous work. The method has two
main features: the stresses are eliminated from the nite element formulation by satisfying the stressstrain equations with the assumed
strains, which is much more convenient than the L2 -orthogonal condition in Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS) method for developing
nite elements; the stresses, obtained from the assumed strains with the stressstrain relations, are forced to satisfy the equilibrium
equations identically to reduce the number of assumed strain parameters and to improve nite element efciency. The method is
applied to develop several variations of 3-node triangular and 4-node quadrilateral Mindlin plate elements. Numerical examples show
that efcient elements could be obtained from the suggested method. 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Hu-Washizu variational principle; Euler-Lagrangian equation; Assumed strain; Mindlin-Reissner plate

1. Introduction
In the eld of structural nite elements, when mentioning assumed strain method, one naturally thinks of
the Assumed Natural Strain (ANS) method [1] and the Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS) method [24].
With similar names, the two methods are quite different. The key idea of the ANS method is the
replacement, in the minimum potential energy principle, of selected displacement-related strains by independently assumed strain elds in element natural coordinates. The variational basis of the original ANS
method is not clear, which is investigated in Ref. [5]. In a general application of the ANS method, three
things have to be determined: (i) the strain components to be replaced; (ii) the positions of the sample
strains; (iii) the interpolations adopted for the independently assumed strains. Although the elements
derived from the method, e.g. MITC elements [6], usually perform rather well, there is no criterion for
determining the above aspects, especially the second one. Some MITC elements expose deciency in some
cases, e.g., for irregular meshes or very thin plates, MITC4 suffers from a decreased accuracy and a stabilization technique has to be used.
In Ref. [2], a three eld method, designated as Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS) method, is put forward
for developing efcient elements. A class of elements are also developed from the method. The obtained
elements are free from problems like shear locking and volumetric locking present in many purely displacement-based elements, but otherwise avoided by e.g. the `natural' approach, [7,8]. The EAS method is
based on the HuWashizu variational principle, in which the displacements, strains and stresses are all
treated as independent variables. The key idea of the method is to consider assumed strain elds e of the
form
e ru ~e;

Corresponding author. Tel.: +46-8-790-60-00; fax: +46-8-21-69-49; e-mail: anderi@struct.kth.se

0045-7825/99/$ see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 7 8 2 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 2 - X

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Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

where ru is the compatible part of the strain elds and ~e the enhanced part. The stress elds are eliminated
from the nite element method by enforcing the condition
Z
rT
~e dX 0;
2
X

where r is the assumed stress vector. Two other conditions on the admissible interpolations for ~e ensure
convergence and stability of the method, [2]. Eq. (2) is called L2 -orthogonal condition. Its physical meaning
could be explained as the work done by the assumed stresses on the enhanced strains being zero. Eq. (2) is the
basis of the EAS method. As the condition is expressed in an integral form, it is not convenient for application. Furthermore, the enforcement of full orthogonality on the stress elds at the variational level
leads to an overly restrained model. Indeed, the original displacement formulation is restored if Eq. (2) is
strictly fullled, [9]. Thus the orthogonality is only enforced for a constant stress eld.
In Refs. [1012], a method under the name of eld consistence approach is suggested for developing
elements. Some highly efcient beam elements were also obtained. From the investigation, common
isoparametric elements can be seen as degenerated cases of the elements obtained through the eld
consistence approach, with only low order terms retained and the relation between functions ignored. The
approach is also used to reasonably explain shear locking and membrane locking in beam elements. In
Ref. [13], the approach is extended to develop 2D elements. An efcient 4-node quadrilateral plane stress
element, with ve assumed stress parameters, is obtained. In the same article, the relationship between the
eld consistence approach and other nite element method is investigated and a possible alternative way
for developing efcient nite elements is opened. In this paper, on the basis of Ref. [13], an alternative
assumed strain method (AAS) is put forward. Then, the method is applied to develop MindlinReissner
plate elements. Popular numerical examples are used to test the performances of the new elements from
the method.

2. General formulation of alternative assumed strain method

The general basic equations for describing a quasi-static problem in structural mechanics can be briey
summarized as follows:
The equilibrium equation is
rr q 0;

where r is the vector of stresses or internal forces, q the body force vector. The dierentiation operator r is
determined by the adopted structural theory.
The strain-displacement relation is
e Lu;

in which e is the strain vector, u the displacement vector. L is another dierentiation operator decided by the
adopted strain denition.
The stressstrain relation is
r D e;

where D is a matrix containing the material parameters.

Starting from the HuWashizu variational principle, one can establish the nite element formulation for
the assumed strain method. The HuWashizu generalized strain energy in an element is

Z 
1 T
e De rT Lu e qT u dX:
6
PHW
2
X
By introducing interpolation functions for r, e and u, according to
;
r H rr

e H ee;

u H u
u;

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

25

where the over-bar denotes discretised values. One can re-write Eq. (6) as
1

T F ru 
T F ree 
PHW eT F eee r
ur
uT P;
2
where

Z
F ee

H Te DH e dX;

Z
F re

H Tr H e dX;

Z
F ru

P

Z
X

9
H Tr B

dX;

H Tu q dX

and
B LH u :

10

The rst variation of PHW is


 duT F Tru r
 P
u F ree deT F eee F Tre r
rT F ru 
dPHW d

11

which must be zero for equilibrium, as the HuWashizu variational principle demands stationarity. Obtained from the above variation is a set of EulerLagrangian equations in discrete form, when noting that
the variation must vanish for arbitrary variables,
F ru u F ree 0;
 0;
F eee F Tre r
T
 0:
P
F r

12

ru

 from Eq. (12) yields

Eliminating e and r

Ku P;

13

where the well-known element stiness matrix is

1

T
K F Tru F re F 1
ee F re F ru :

14

T
The interpolation matrices H e and H r should guarantee that F ee and (F re F 1
ee F re ) are of full rank.
In Eqs. (7)(14), the displacements, stresses and strains are interpolated independently. The drawback of
the procedure is obvious. A large number of unknowns are introduced in assuming the stresses and the
strains. In Eq. (14), matrix inversion is carried out twice for calculating the element stiness matrix. Some
further work need be done to improve the computational eciency. One possible way is to interpolate the
displacements with iso-parametric functions; the strains are independently assumed with non-nodal parameters; the stresses are obtained from the stressstrain relations with the assumed strains; then, the
stresses are made to satisfy the equilibrium equations pointwise with the undetermined coefcient method in
Ref. [13]. In this way, the number of introduced non-nodal parameters is reduced. Furthermore, just one
matrix inversion is needed in calculating the element stiffness matrix. This is the main idea of the AAS
method.
If the stressstrain relation in Eq. (5) is satised with the assumed strains, the matrix H r in Eq. (7) can be
expressed, with H e as

H r DH e :

15

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Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

Substituting Eq. (15) into the second and the third equations in Eq. (9) gives
Z
F re DH e T H e dX F ee ;
ZX
F ru H Te DB dX

16

With Eq. (16), the element stiness matrix in Eq. (14) can be re-written as
K F Tru F 1
ee F ru :

17

Now, if the matrices B and H e are provided, the element stiness matrix K can be calculated from Eqs. (16)
and (17).
3. Basic equations of MindlinReissner plate theory
In this and the following sections, the alternative assumed strain method is applied in developing
Mindlin plate elements. As is well-known, this type of elements easily suer from shear locking. For later
reference, the basic equations of the MindlinReissner plate theory are briey reviewed in this section. The
nite element formulations of the Mindlin plate elements are derived in Sections 4 and 5.
Based on the ReissnerMindlin plate theory [14,15], the strain state at a point in a plate element can be
described by two curvatures jx , jy , one twist curvature jxy and two transverse shear strains cx , cy (see Fig. 1).


owy
ow
owx owy
ow
ow
jy
;
jxy

;
cx
wx ;
wy ; 18
cy
jx x ;
ox
oy
oy
ox
ox
oy
where w; wx and wy are, respectively, the transverse displacement and the two sectional rotations.
The stressstrain relation (or internal force-strain relation) is
r De

19

in which
r Mx My Mxy Qx Qy T ;

20

e jx jy jxy cx cy :

In the rst of Eq. (20), Mx and My are the sectional bending moments, Mxy the sectional twisting moment,
while Qx and Qy are sectional shear forces.
Z t=2
Z t=2
Z t=2
Mx
zrx dz;
My
zry dz;
Mxy
zsxy dz;
Z
Qx

t=2
t=2

t=2

sxz dz;

Z
Qy

t=2
t=2

t=2

t=2

syz dz:

Fig. 1. Internal forces of MindlinReissner plate.

21

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

D is the physical property

2
D1 D2 0
6 D2 D1 0
6
0 D3
D6
6 0
4 0
0
0
0
0
0

27

matrix
0
0
0
D4
0

3
0
0 7
7
0 7
7;
0 5
D4

22

where
D1

Et3
;
121 m2

D2

mEt3
;
121 m2

D3

Et3
;
241 m

D4 kGt:

E and m are, respectively, Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio.

The HuWashizu generalized strain energy in a plate element is


Z 
1
1
1
1
1
owx
2
2
2
2
2
jx
D1 jx D2 jx jy D1 jy D3 jxy D4 cx D4 cy Mx
PHW
ox
2
2
2
2
2
A




owy
owy
ow
jy Mxy x
jxy
My
oy
oy
ox




ow
ow
Qx
dA:
wx cx Qy
wy cy
ox
oy

23

24

From Eq. (24), a set of thirteen EulerLagrangian equations can be derived

oQx oQy

0;
ox
oy

25a

oMx oMxy

Qx 0;
ox
oy

25b

oMxy oMy

Qy 0;
@x
oy

25c

D1 jx D2 jy Mx 0;

25d

D2 jx D1 jy My 0;

25e

D3 jxy Mxy 0;

25f

D4 cx Qx 0;

25g

D4 cy Qy 0;

25h

jx

owx
0;
ox

25i

jy

owy
0;
oy

25j

owx owy

0;
oy
ox

25k

jxy

ow
wx cx 0;
ox

25l

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Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

ow
wy cy 0:
oy

25m

As all the external forces have been allocated to element nodes, the Eqs. (25a),(25b),(25c) describe the
equilibrium in the interior of an element. Eqs. (25d),(25e),(25f),(25g),(25h) represent the relations between
the internal forces and the generalized strains. Eqs. (25i),(25j),(25k),(25l),(25m) relate the strains to the
displacements.
In the alternative assumed strain method, the displacements are interpolated with isoparametric functions. The matrix B can be derived by the adopted strain denition. To construct the assumed strain matrix
H e , the following steps can be followed:
(1) assume jx , jy and jxy ;
(2) obtain Mx , My and Mxy respectively from (25d)(25f), with jx , jy and jxy ;
(3) obtain Qx from (25b) and Qy from (25c);
(4) make Qx and Qy satisfy (25a);
(5) obtain cx from (25g) and cy from (25h) with Qx , Qy , respectively;
(6) construct H e from jx , jy , jxy , cx and cy .
4. Derivation of B matrix
In the application of the alternative assumed strain method to develop a nite element, the main
task is to derive the matrices B and H e . In this section, the expression of the matrix B is derived with respect
to 3-node triangular and 4-node quadrilateral elements. The derivation of matrix H e is left to next section.
4.1. 3-node plate bending elements
In a triangular element shown in Fig. 2, the physical coordinates of an arbitrary point in the element can
be expressed, with natural coordinates, as
x L1 x1 L2 x2 L3 x3 ;
y L1 y1 L2 y2 L3 y3 ;

26

where
L1 1 r s;

L2 r;

L3 s:

From Eqs. (26) and (27), the Jacobian can be calculated as



x2 x1 y2 y1
:
J
x3 x1 y3 y1

Fig. 2. A 3-node triangular element in physical and natural coordinate system.

27

28

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

29

It can be noted that the Jacobian is a constant matrix for a triangular element. Its inverse is I J 1 . For
convenience, the following symbols are introduced
I11 I1; 1;

I12 I1; 2;

I21 I2; 1;

I22 I2; 2:

29

Therefore, the derivatives of a function, f r; s, with respect to x and y can be calculated as

of
of
of
I11
I12 ;
ox
or
os
of
of
of
I21
I22 :
oy
or
os

30

The displacements are interpolated with the same interpolations as in Eq. (27)
w L1 w1 L2 w2 L3 w3 ;
wx L1 w1x L2 w2x L3 w3x ;
wy

L1 w1y

L2 w2y

31

L3 w3y :

With the strain denition in Eq. (18) and the displacements in Eq. (31), the strain matrix B can be derived
2
3
0
0 I11
0
0 I12
0
0
I11 I12
6
0
I21 0
0
I22 7
0
0
I21 I22 0
6
7
0
I

I
I

I
0

I
0

I12 7
B6
32
21
22
11
12
21
11
22
6
7:
4 I11 I12
L1
0
I11 L2
0
I12 L3
0 5
0
L1
I21
0
L2 I22
0
L3
I21 I22
4.2. 4-node plate bending elements
A typical 4-node quadrilateral element is described in Fig. 3. The physical coordinates of a particle in the
element can be interpolated as
x h1 x1 h2 x2 h3 x3 h4 x4 ;

y h1 y1 h2 y2 h3 y3 h4 y4

33

where hi (i 1, 2, 3, 4) are bilinear isoparametric interpolations

1
hi 1 ri r1 si s ri 1; si 1:
4

Fig. 3. A 4-node quadrilateral element in physical and natural system.

34

30

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

The Jacobian matrix of the coordinate transformation is calculated as

"
#
J

ox
or
ox
os

oy
or
oy
os

35

In the following development, to reduce element sensitivity to geometric distortion, an averaged Jacobian,
J , is used, [16]
R
Jj dr ds
36
J A
A
R1 R1
in this expression, j detJ is the determinant of the Jacobian J and A 1 1 j dr ds is the area of the
quadrilateral element.
Now the Jacobian J and its inverse matrix I J 1 are constant matrices. Similar to that in the last subsection, the following symbols are dened
I11 I1; 1;

I12 I1; 2;

I21 I2; 1;

I22 I2; 2:

37

The displacement elds are interpolated with the same interpolation functions as in Eq. (34)
w h1 w1 h2 w2 h3 w3 h4 w4 ;
wx h1 w1x h2 w2x h3 w3x h4 w4x ;
wy

h1 w1y

h2 w2y

h3 w3y

38

h4 w4y :

Similarly, the strain matrix B can be derived from Eqs.

2
0
0
b2
0
0
0
b1
6 0
0
0
b
0
0
b
5
6
6
b9
b10
0
b11
b12
0
B6
6 0
4 b17 h1
0
b18 h2
0
b19
0
h1 b22
0
h2 b23
b21

(18), (30) and (38)

b3
0
b13
h3
0

0
b7
b14
0
h3

0
0
0
b20
b24

b4
0
b15
h4
0

3
0
b8 7
7
b16 7
7:
0 5
h4

39

The expressions for bi i 1; 2; . . . ; 24 are given in Appendix A.

5. Assumed strains and derivation of H
To derive the matrix He needed for calculating the element stiness matrix in Eq. (17), a set of assumed
strains is selected. Theoretically, there is no way to determine the optimum assumed strains at this moment.
A trial-check method has to be used to sift out a good element. Six possible sets of assumed strains are chosen
jx a1 a2 r;

jy a3 a4 s;

jxy a5

40a

jx a1 a2 s;

jy a3 a4 r;

jxy a5

40b

jx a1 a2 r;

jy a3 a4 s;

jxy a5 a6 r a7 s

40c

jx a1 a2 s;

jy a3 a4 r;

jxy a5 a6 r a7 s

40d

jx a1 a2 r a3 s;

jy a4 a5 r a6 s;

jx a1 a2 r a3 s a4 rs;

jxy a7 a8 r a9 s

jy a5 a6 r a7 s a8 rs;

jxy a9 a10 r a11 s a12 rs

40e
40f

The above sets of assumed strains are arranged from simple to complex and selected according to the
requirements of (quasi-)completeness and (anti-)symmetry in Ref. [13]. In Eqs. (40a) and (40c), the assumed
jx and jy are quasi-complete rst order polynomials, while the assumed jx and jy in Eqs. (40b) and (40d)
satisfy anti-symmetry. It can be seen, from the following derivation in this section, that it is impossible for

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

31

the assumed jx and jy to be constants in the alternative assumed strain method. If constant jx and jy were
adopted, the moments Mx and My in Eq. (41) would be also constants and the shear forces Qx and Qy in Eq.
(42) would be zero. The shear strains cx and cy are thus zero, leading to a singular matrix He .
In the alternative assumed strain method, the construction of the matrix He is independent of the element
conguration. With the same set of assumed strains, a triangle and a quadrilateral can have an identical
matrix He . The set of assumed strains in Eq. (40d) is taken as an example to demonstrate how the matrix He
is derived.
Following the procedure described at the end of Section 3, the assumed strains in Eq. (40d) are substituted in Eqs. (25d),(25e),(25f) to calculate the internal forces Mx , My and Mxy
Mx D2 a4 r D1 a2 s D1 a1 D2 a3 ;
My D1 a4 r D2 a2 s D2 a1 D1 a3 ;
Mxy D3 a6 r a7 s a5 :

41

With Mx , My and Mxy , the internal forces Qx and Qy can be obtained respectively from Eqs. (25b) and (25c)
Qx I11 D2 a4 I12 D1 a2 D3 I21 a6 I22 a7 ;
Qy I21 D1 a4 I22 D2 a2 D3 I11 a6 I12 a7 ;

42

As Iij i; j 1; 2 are constants, Qx and Qy are also constants and satisfy the equilibrium equation in Eq.
(25a). The strains cx and cy can be derived respectively from Eqs. (25g) and (25h) with Qx and Qy . The
matrix He is thus obtained
2
3
1 s
0 0
0 0
0
60 0
1 r
0 0
0
7
6
7
7:
0 0
0 0
1 r
s
He 6
43
6
7
4 0 I12 DD14 0 I11 DD24 0 I21 DD34 I22 DD34 5
0 I22 DD24 0 I21 DD14 0 I11 DD34 I12 DD34
Exactly the same procedures can be followed to derive the matrix He corresponding to any of the other sets
of assumed strains in Eqs. (40). The triangular elements corresponding to the assumed strains in
Eqs. (40a),(40b),(40c),(40d),(40e),(40f) are labeled, respectively, PLT3-1, PLT3-2, . . ., PLT3-6. The quadrilateral elements corresponding to the assumed strains are denoted as PLT4-1, PLT4-2, . . ., PLT4-6.
6. Numerical tests
In this section, several numerical examples are used to illustrate the performance of the newly developed
elements, thus to demonstrate the practicability of the alternative assumed strain method in developing
ecient nite elements. Another aim of the tests is to sift out an element with good performance. The tested
performances include convergence, shear locking and eects from geometric distortion. Three well-known
examples are selected: a square plate, a rhombic plate and a circular plate. The obtained results are
compared to some well-known existing elements.
The rst example is a simply-supported square plate, shown as Fig. 4, with side length L 10, thickness
t 0.1, Young's modulus E 10.92 and Poisson's ratio m 0:3. The plate is affected by uniformly distributed transverse load. For symmetry, only one quarter of the plate was analyzed. First, the convergence
of the elements is checked by recording the deection variation at the plate center with mesh density. The
obtained deection is normalized with the series solution [17], which is wc 4:0568  104 for the above
given parameters. The results of convergence tests are given in Fig. 5.
It was found that element PLT4-2 is very exible. For keeping a suitable scale, the curve obtained by
PLT4-2 is not displayed in the gure. The results are compared to MITC4 developed by Bathe [1], T1
by Hughes [18] and an EAS element by Simo [2]. From the results, it can be seen that all the quadrilateral elements except PLT4-2 behave fairly well in this test, especially PLT4-5 and PLT4-6. The
performance of PLT4-5 and PLT4-6 in a coarse mesh is even better than that of the reference elements.

32

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

Fig. 4. Simply supported square plate meshed with: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Fig. 5. Central deection of the square plate: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Most of the triangular elements, except PLT3-2, are too sti. Two deformed congurations of the plate
are displayed in Fig. 6, respectively obtained by PLT3-2 with a 8  8  2 mesh and by PLT4-5 with a
8  8 mesh.
The elements were also tested with respect to their performance in simulating thin plates. To this end, the
above structure was re-analyzed but in a slightly dierent way. The mesh pattern was xed as 8  8  2 for
triangular elements or 8  8 for quadrilateral elements. The plate thickness was changed according to
t 10m with m 0  4. Fig. 7 shows the results of shear-locking tests, the variation of normalized central
transverse displacement with aspect ratio log10 L=2t.
For the mentioned reason, the result from PLT4-2 is not displayed. The results show that all the
quadrilateral elements are free of shear locking. In triangular elements, PLT3-6 obviously suers from shear
locking. PLT3-1, PLT3-3, PLT3-4 and PLT3-5 are too sti if used to analyze thin structure. Element PLT32 can pass the test.
The second example is a simply supported 30 skew plate, with side length L 100, thickness t 1,
Young's modulus E 103 and Poisson's ratio m 0:3. The plate is acted by uniform load q 1. The mesh
congurations of the plate with triangular and quadrilateral elements are shown in Fig. 8. The aim of this
test was to check element performance in geometric distortion. It is believed that this test is a difcult case.

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

33

Fig. 6. Deformed congurations obtained by: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Fig. 7. Shear-locking tests: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

The obtuse corners are singular points, where moments are theoretically innite. The adopted mesh pattern
(a) in Fig. 8 is particularly unfavorable to triangular elements.
The variation of the central deection with mesh density is investigated. The obtained results are given in
Fig. 9. In this case, Elements PLT3-6 and PLT4-6 failed due to singular matrices. The gures show that all
triangular elements are too sti; approximately only 50% of the series solution is reached, while most of the
quadrilateral elements can give satisfactory results, compared to the reference elements. Fig. 10 displays
two typical deformed congurations of the skew plate, obtained respectively by PLT3-2 with a 16  16  2
mesh and PLT4-4 with a 16  16 mesh.
The third example is a simply supported circular plate with modulus of elasticity E 10.92, Poisson's
ratio m 0:3, radius R 5 and thickness t 0.1, and subjected to a uniform load q 1. The objective of this
test was to check if satisfactory results can be obtained when an irregular mesh is used. Fig. 11 shows the
mesh congurations. Once again, an unfavorable mesh pattern was adopted for the triangular elements.
Fig. 12 gives the obtained results, the variation of central deection with mesh density. Two deformed
congurations are given in Fig. 13. Similarly as in the previous test, all the triangular elements behave too

34

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

Fig. 8. Rhombic plate meshed with: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Fig. 9. Central deection of the rhombic plate: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Fig. 10. Deformed congurations obtained by: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

Fig. 11. One quarter of the circular plate meshed with: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

Fig. 12. Central deection of the circular plate obtained by: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements

Fig. 13. Deformed congurations obtained by: (a) triangular elements; (b) quadrilateral elements.

35

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Luo Yunhua, A. Eriksson / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 178 (1999) 2337

stify in this test but a little better than in the previous one. It can be seen that all the quadrilateral behave
fairly satisfactory.
From the above numerical tests, element PLT4-5 behaved the best among all the triangular and
quadrilateral elements with respect to the tested performances. Among the triangular elements, element
PLT3-2 performed rather well in regular meshes, but gave a largely decreased accuracy in distorted meshes.
Although some of the newly developed elements behaved too stiy in the tests, it is easy to obtain an
element free of shear locking with the alternative assumed strain method.
7. Concluding remarks
In this paper, an alternative assumed strain method is put forward, on the basis of the extended eld
consistence approach in Ref. [13]. The method has two main features: the stresses are eliminated from the
nite element formulation by satisfying the stressstrain equations with the assumed strains, which is much
more convenient than the L2 -orthogonal condition in Ref. [2] for developing nite elements; the stresses,
obtained from the assumed strains with the stressstrain relations, are forced to satisfy the equilibrium
equations pointwise to reduce the number of assumed strain parameters and to improve element efciency.
The method is applied to develop Mindlin plate elements, including 3-node triangles and 4-node quadrilaterals. The numerical results from several well-known examples show that most of the quadrilateral
elements derived from the method have fairly good performances in the selected tests. The obtained triangular elements behave not so satisfactory. The reason might be that the order of interpolations for the
displacements is too low. The triangular elements could possibly be improved by adopting higher order
interpolations for the displacements. The study suggests that the alternative assumed strain method is a new
way for developing efcient nite elements.
Appendix A
The expressions of bi i 1; 2; . . . ; 24 in the matrix B in Eq. (39)
b1 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b2 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b3 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b4 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b5 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b6 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b7 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b8 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b9 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b10 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b11 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b12 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b13 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b14 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b15 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b16 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b17 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b18 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b19 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b20 14 I11 1 s I12 1 r;

b21 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b22 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b23 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r;

b24 14 I21 1 s I22 1 r:

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