Computers & Strucrures Vol. 50, No. 4. pp. 549-W.

1994
Copyright Q 1994 Elswier Scii Ltd
Pergamon Printedin Great Britain.All rights rcwved
co45-7949/w 56.00 + 0.00

FOUR-NODE ‘FLAT’ SHELL ELEMENT: DRILLING

DEGREES OF FREEDOM, MEMBRANE-BENDING
COUPLING, WARPED GEOMETRY,
AND BEHAVIOR
R. D. CODK
Department of Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
WI 53706, USA

(Received 18 August 1992)

Alxstracf-A very simple way to obtain a quadrilateral shell element is to write membrane and bending
stiffness matrices for a flat geometry and add them. This basic membrane-plus-bending element can be
modified to incorporate membrane&ending coupling and to accommodate a geometry in which the four
nodes are not coplanar. The present paper develops a 24 degree of freedom quadrilateral shell element
and concurrently provides a status report on the formulation method by pointing out what works and
what does not. Numerical results are good: the element is not the best available four-node shell element
in all test cases but is far from the worst.

INTRODUCMON ELEMENT FORMULATION

A finite element for shell analysis can be obtained by
combining two flat elements, one for plane elasticity
and the other for bending of flat plates. Early triangu-
lar elements were of this type. They did not work
well in some problems because of poor membrane
response and the absence of coupling between mem-
brane and bending actions. Also, ridge-like intersec-
tions were awkward to model because there were but
five degrees of freedom (DOF) per node. More
recently, a membranebending coupling device has
been devised [l, 21 and the advent of ‘drilling’ ro-
tational DOF [3,4] has lessened the ridge intersection
difficulty. Unfortunately, drilling DOF make mem-
brane locking more likely, i.e. the model may become
excessively stiff because rotational DOF associated
with bending activate membrane strains as well as
bending strains. Locking, however, can usually be
reduced or even removed. As a result of all these
efforts some very good triangular shell elements are
now available [2, 5,6].
Similar procedures can be used to produce a
four-node quadrilateral shell element having six DOF
per node. However, the quadrilateral presents some
difficulties that do not appear in the triangle, so that
the quadrilateral is not a direct extension of the
triangle. What follows is a report on the quadrilat-
eral, with attention to procedures that succeed and
those that fail. The principal shortcoming of the
quadrilateral appears to be a tendency toward mem-
brane locking, which however is not great, so that a
good element is nevertheless produced.
Local coordinate system
The first step in element formulation is to place the
element in a local coordinate system xyz that is
oriented with reference to the element and is defined
by using the global XYZ coordinates of element
nodes (Fig. 1). Element properties are formulated in
the local coordinate system. The last step before
assembly of elements is transformation of nodal DOF
from local to global directions. Use of a local coordi-
nate system is convenient and also guarantees that the
assembled finite element structure will display geo-
metric invariance, regardless of the nature of the
element stiffness formulation.
Details of how the local coordinate system are
established are not important. The procedure used
here is similar to that described in [7]. The result is a
local system xyz with xy the reference plane (Fig. 2).
If the element is flat, its local nodal coordinates zi
are all zero. If the element is warped, the zi are
alternately + H and -H units above and below the
reference plane xy. The x and y axes are parallel to
sides of a rectangular element, i.e. x and y coincide
with lines connecting midpoints of opposite sides. If
the element is nonrectangular, x and y are approxi-
mately parallel to the lines connecting midpoints,
with the longer of the two lines more heavily
weighted.
Except for membranebending coupling terms and
the correction for a warped element, stiffness matrix
formulation proceeds as if the element were flat, using

549
550 R. D. COOK

brane locking when used in its curved form for shells,

but more tendency toward shear locking when used
in its flat form for membrane problems. However,
shear locking can be avoided for most element shapes
by defining the membrane shear strain as a constant
over the quadrilateral [lo]

(3)

(a) (b) where A, is the area of a subtriangle. Here the

Fig. 1. (a) Quadrilateral shell element, showing global and quadrilateral is regarded as composed of the four
local coordinate systems. (b) Nodal DQF in the local system overlapping subtriangles 123, 234, 341, and 412, with
XyZ.
(~~r)~the shear strain in the k th subtriangle as defined
by standard constant-strain angle operations [9].
the plane quadrilateral that the element projects on In order to permit various options for shear strain
the xy reference plane. to be tested, we define the final expression for yXYin
the quadrilateral as
Basic membrane formulation
The membrane element is of the isoparametric type Yxy = B(r,)c,, + (1 - /3)kJX~)(3,9 (4)
and is numerically integrated using a 2 x 2 Gauss
rule. For membrane action there are three DOF at where (y,)(,, is produced by eqn (1) using standard
each comer i, consisting of x and y translations ui and manipulations, /I is a number 0 < /I -C 1, and (Ye,,) is
r.+and drilling rotation Bzi,positive counterclockwise. the value of yXYdefined by eqn (3). Patch tests are
Shape functions for the displacement field are ob- passed for all values of 1.
tained by starting with the 16 DOF of an element A modest but worthwhile improvement in mem-
having both midside nodes and corner nodes but brane response results from the addition of two
translational DOF only, then transforming in the internal DOF a, and a*. Thus, u and v of eqn (la) and
manner described in [8]. In terms of the usual isopara- (lb) are augmented to become
metric coordinates t and r~, where - 1 G 5 < 1 and
- 1 < r~Q 1, the resulting membrane displacement 24 = (la) + (1 - {‘)a, W
field that operates on comer DOF is
v = (lb) + (1 - q2)a2. (5b)

14= i Ni”i+(Y,4N*-Y2,N3)e,, Nodeless DOF a, and a2 are condensed before assem-

i=,
bly of elements. Using eqns (5), plane rectangular
elements give exact displacements in pure bending;
using eqns (l), bending displacements are about 7%
-~43hR3 + (~43N, - ~14WR4 (la) low. These results are unaffected by the value of /I
used in eqn (4). In shell problems the effect of two
internal DOF is less than 7%.

Control of a mechanism
+ 6,~ Ns - x23 Ns F’z, + 623 h’s Like all other elements having drilling DOF, a
quadrilateral element has the instability in which all
- XY NT N3 + h N, - x41 % Pz4 (lb) drilling DOF Bzihave the same value. A previously
suggested control device [8] can be applied directly to
where the first four Ni are the standard bilinear shape the quadrilateral, but this leads to a very slight failure
functions [e.g. Nr = (1 - <)(l - r/)/4], xi/ = Xi - Xj
and y, = yi - yj are comer coordinate differences, and

N,=h(l -?)(l -rt), &=iLg(l +r)(l --q2)

N,=+Jl -r’)(l +rt), N,=&(l -r)(l -rt’). (2)

Standard procedures [9] are now applied to produce

a membrane stiffness matrix that operates on 12
nodal DOF. (a) (b)
Drilling DOF are hierarchic, meaning that they can Fig. 2. (a) Reference element in the xy plane. (b) Element
be omitted from the element formulation. If they are edge and DOF used to formulate membrane-bending coup-
omitted the element has less tendency toward mem- ling.
 Four-node ‘flat’ shell element
of the patch test unless /? = 0 or /I = 1 in eqn (4). The
q~d~laterai passes the patch test for all values of /?
if instead the device is applied to the four overIapping
subtriangles 123, 234, 341, and 412, and the four
results are added. For the subtriangle spanning
nodes 1, 2, and 3 for example, we add to the
quad~lateral stiffness matrix the rank-one matrix
k, = 10-6E.4tRR, where E = elastic modulus, A =
subtriangle area, t = element thickness, and
R = x23
4A 4A
Yz3 1 2 Y31 1 -xJZ ---YJZ
---
3 4A 4A 3 4A 4A
1
3
which operates on DOF [u, v, 0,, u2 u, 6,, u3 vj
e,,]‘. The factor of 10e6 is rather arbitrary. A factor
as large as lop2 changes element behavior very
little [8]. The value 10m6 has almost no effect other
than suppression of the mechanism.
Bending stiffness
Plate-bending stiffness resists the transverse dis-
placement DOF wi and the in-plane rotation DOF 0,
and f?,. For plate action we choose the well-known
DKT element [l 1, 121, arranged as a set of four
overlapping subtriangles to avoid directional bias,
and with each subtriangle having half the flexural
rigidity of the actual material. This choice is made
merely because the DKT element works well and is
conveniently available. A good quadrilateral plate
element could be used instead, probably with very
similar results.
membrane-bending c~upl~g
The coupling procedure is applied in various but
similar forms in [l, 2,6]. The form used here is the
very simple form described in 161,so it is presented
~ompac~y here. Along a typical element edge of
length LI between nodes i and j, let s be an edge-
tangent coordinate and u, be the s-direction displace-
ment, where u, varies linearly with s between nodal
values u, and Use.Let the lateral displacement w along
edge 0 be
L,-s
-%Wj+ q$ (0, - e,>,
w=L,wi , I
where Bi and 13~are nodal rotations in the xy plane,
positive outward from the edge, and expressible in
terms of fJIXi
and f?,,and the angle $i between the x axis
and direction ij. The average strain along edge v is
taken as
where the latter integral contains the 6, expression of
Mareuerre shallow shell theorvI. 1131.
a The edee
551
elevation z may be taken as a parabola between nodes
i and j with a mid-edge elevation hi relative to line g
(Fig. 2). Thus eqn (8) yields
(c,), = y + 2. (ei - e,). (9)
I i
If standard strain transformations and eqn (9) are
applied to each side of a triangular element we obtain
1(6) relationships of the form
c,=Ce and ez=SB, (10)
where ss is a column matrix of three edge-parallel
strains, the Cartesian strains are
C contains sines and cosines of edge orientations (pi ,
8 contains six in-plane nodal rotation DOF, and S
contains the information of eqn (9) for each edge
along with sines and cosines of &. The expression
L = C’S8 defines a constant strain state over the
triangle. Terms of C’S are entered into the mem-
brane strain-displacement matrix and make it poss-
ible for inextensional bending states to exist, thus
removing a source of membrane locking.
Unfortunately the foregoing procedure for a tri-
angle is not directly transferrable to a quadrilateral.
A least squares procedure that uses four edges to
determine the three strains in L fails for a rectangle
because it provides no info~ation about shear strain
yXy.This defect can be cured by adding diagonals of
the quadrilateral to the least squares procedure, but
then a cylindrical shell element does not respond
properly to moment vectors parallel to the axis of the
cylinder. Both problems are solved by using the
scheme of four overlapping triangles for all three
strains in c = C’S& as described by yXyalone in eqn
(3). Here the weighting by triangle areas A, is not
necessary but provides a definite improvement in
performance.
The foregoing subtriangle procedure requires el-
evations hi at midpoints of both diagonals of the
(7)
quadrilateral. They are computed as follows. Let h, ,
h2, h,, and hg be the hi at midpoints of sides 12, 23,
34, and 41. ~esumably these hi are available as input
data. Let h, be hi at the midpoint of diagonal 24
where & and qs are the 4 and tt coordinates of point
5. A similar calculation is used for h6, the other
mid-diagonal elevation, Isoparametric coordinates
are calculated directly, e.g.
(x2 + x4 w
CS= (12)
(XI + x2 + x3 + x4)/4 .
552 R. D. COOK

Fig. 3. View of adjacent shell elements 1 and 2 parallel to

local xy planes.

The procedure of eqns (11) and (12) is approximate

unless the element is rectangular or a parallelogram.
A rigorous calculation of h, and h, would be much
more tedious, and numerical evidence does not
suggest that it would be worth the trouble.
Fig. 5. Shell roof test case. R = 25.0, L = 50.0, thick-
ness = 0.25, E = 4.32 x lOa, v = 0, shell weight = 90.0 per
unit area. A 2 x 2 mesh is shown. Vertical deflection at A
is 0.3024 according to theory.

Warping correction
a rank-two matrix that operates on only the drilling
Thus far the element has been formulated using its
DOF. The latter matrix is the sole cause of membrane
projection, for which all nodes lie in the xy reference
locking in shells, but must be present when elements
plane. If global coordinates do not place all element
are coplanar. This matrix can be multiplied by a
nodes in the same plane, element behavior is much
factor that is unity for coplanar elements but ap-
too stiff in many problems unless modified by a
proaches zero as the curvature of the element in-
warping correction. The correction used here is taken
creases. Thus it is easy to avoid membrane locking in
from eqns (9b), (SC), (lOc), and (11) of [7l. The
the triangular shell element.
correction is embodied in a matrix T such that the
The corresponding remedy for the quadrilateral
transformation TrIcT produces a z-direction stiffness
would use /_I= 1 in eqn (4) for coplanar elements and
from membrane stiffness coefficients while leaving
arrange for /I to approach zero as elements become
existing membrane stiffness coefficients and bending
more highly curved. However, edge tractions on
stiffness coefficients unchanged. Matrix T is gener-
elements produce nodal torques corresponding to the
ated entirely from nodal coordinate data in the local
0,, when /I = 1, but zero torques when #I = 0. Hence
xyz system.
adjacent elements having different values of /I would
be incompatible (with the triangular element, similar
Membrane locking tendency adjustments of the second stabilization matrix pre-
sent no such difficulty). At this time the writer does
The origin of membrane locking is suggested by
not know of a satisfactory cure, but fortunately the
Fig. 3, where a nodal rotation 0, is associated with
quadrilateral element does not have a great propen-
bending deformation in element 2 but has a drilling
sity for membrane locking.
component 6, normal to the base plane of element 1;
It may be noted that use of one-point integration
0, is associated with membrane action in element 1.
for only the membrane terms associated with the tlli,
Accordingly eb is in part resisted by membrane
with four-point integration for other terms, produces
stiffness, which is typically far greater than bending
elements that either fail the patch test or behave badly
stiffness and hence causes bending deformations to be
otherwise.
much too small. This ‘locking’ tendency vanishes as
elements become coplanar.
The same difficulty appears in a triangular shell
element [6]. The element of [6] contains a form of
constant-strain triangle and requires two stabilization
matrices: one is described by eqn (6) and the other is

1.0
.A__

OF I
1.0
I- “.”
Diaphragm
lW .I
L I.1 1.9 3.1 3.9 5.1 I.0

OF 0.9 2.1 2.9 4.1 4.9

Fig. 4. Plane beams of Poisson ratio v = 0.3 loaded in pure
t
1.0
Fig. 6. Pinched cylinder test case. R = 300.0, L = 600.0,
thickness = 3.0, E = 3.0 x 106, v =0.3, F = 1.0. A 2 x 2
mesh is shown. Displacement at A is 0.18248 x 10e4 accord-
bending. Drawing is not to scale. ing to theory.
 Four-node ‘tlat’ shell element 553

Fig. 8. Cantilevered strip with end-to-end twist of 90”.

L = 12, b = 1.1, r = 0.0032, E = 29 x 106,v = 0.22. A 2 x 4
mesh is shown. Load F = 10e6 applied as forces 0.25 x 10m6,
0.50 x 10e6, and 0.25 x 10e6 at the three end nodes. Dis-

J
X
+F
Free placement at C is 5256 x 10e6 according to theory.

Fig. 7. Hemispherical shell test base. One quadrant with a distorted mesh, fl = 0: w/w,, = 0.051
4 x 4 mesh is shown. Radius = 10.0, thickness = 0.04,
E = 6.825 x lo’, v = 0.3, F = 1.0 for the quadrant modeled. distorted mesh, /I = 1: w/w, = 0.897.
Displacement at A is 0.0924 according to theory.

Clearly, for rectangular elements j does not matter,

NUMERICAL RRSULTS
while badly shaped elements suffer unless fl = 1. With
j? = 1, the present membrane formulation appears to
Membrane behavior have almost the same behavior as the membrane
element suggested in [14].
The two beam problems of Fig. 4 are standard test
cases [8,14]. The arrangement of trapezoidal ele- Shell test cases
ments is a test case in which four-node quadrilaterals
often display shear locking. Expressed as the ratio of The standard ‘obstacle course’ test cases [15] are
computed tip deflection w to exact tip deflection w,,, depicted in Figs 5-8. Data for these problems are
the results are stated in the captions. In Figs 5 and 6, nodes at a
diaphragm support are assumed free to rotate about
a normal to the diaphragm, in accord with the simple
rectangular mesh, fl = 0: w/w,, = 1.000 support condition recommended in [16]. In Fig. 7 a
small hole of radius 0.175 is placed at the top, where
rectangular mesh, /I = 1: w/w,, = 1BOO all DOF are restrained. All meshes ate uniform

Table 1. Shell test case results reported as the ratio of computed deflection to accepted
theoretical deflection
Element formulation

Flat Flat CUNtd &Ned

Mesh /3=0 /?=I j=o /I=1
Shell rooJ Fig. 5
1x1 5.085 4.941 2.951 2.471
2x2 1.548 1.541 1.109 1.080
4x4 1.084 1.085 1.010 1.009
8x8 1.014 1.014 0.995 0.996

Pinched cylinder, Fig. 6

1X1 0.012 0.012 2.125 0.015
2x2 0.098 0.097 1.150 0.178
4x4 0.630 0.627 0.941 0.775
8x8 0.938 0.931 1.016 0.990

Hemisphere, Fig. 7
1x1 0.117 0.056 1.533 0.057
2x2 0.852 0.228 0.654 0.168
4x4 1.002 0.444 0.586 0.606
8x8 1.001 0.948 0.971 0.962

Twisted strip, Fig. 8

1x1 0.916 0.122
2x2 0.859 0.608 r; 1;
2x4 0.978 0.969
2x8 0.999 0.993
t Element sides are straight in a rectangular mesh.
554 R. D. COOK

Table 2. Shell test case results using the ‘curved softened’ TRIANGULAR element of [6]
Mesh Shell roof Pinched cylinder Hemisphere Twisted strip
IX1 moo 0.121 0.213
2x2 1.406 0.959 0.873 0.775
4x4 0.880 0.974 0.978 0.962t
8x8 0.939 0.999 1.007 0.992$
t 2 x 4 mesh.
$2 x 8 mesh.

except those used for the hemisphere, where smaller CONCLUDINGREMARKS

elements appear at the top. In Fig. 8, note that
This paper has considered shell elements obtained
f = 0.0032 rather than the less demanding case of
by the very simple process of combining standard
t = 0.32 that also appears in [15].
membrane and bending formulations with a device
Results appear in Table 1. The ‘flat’ formulation is
for membrane-bending coupling and a device for
obtained by omitting the membrane-bending coup-
inclusion of warping effects. The process leads to
ling device, i.e. by setting hi = 0 in eqn (9) for all
reasonably good four-node quadrilaterals and three-
midpoints. We see from Table 1 that /I = 1 provides
node triangles. Quadrilaterals have better membrane
a stiffer formulation that /_l= 0, but the tendency
behavior than triangles and are free of the directional
toward membrane locking provided by /? = 1 is small.
bias that usually accompanies triangles, e.g. when
For the shell roof and pinched cylinder cases, the best
triangles form a cross-hatch pattern rather than a
element formulation appears to be curved with /I = 1.
herringbone or union-jack pattern. Also, quadrilater-
For the pinched cylinder the curved element with
als do not have the ‘free comer’ problem present in
fl = 0 appears to converge faster; however in this
triangles, in which a curved element may display large
problem the zone of greatest deformation is very
and erroneous displacements if it has a loaded node
localized around the load points, so the apparent
that is not shared by another element. If used without
good convergence properties of this element may
internal DOF, static condensation is avoided, while a
instead be a symptom of a too-flexible formulation.
quadrilateral built of four non-overlapping triangles
In the hemisphere test case there is considerable
would have six internal DOF to be condensed before
bending and rigid body motion of elements but little
assembly of elements and would require additional
membrane strain. For this case the best element is flat
data to properly locate the internal node on the shell
and without drilling DOF. Similar behavior is ob-
surface. On the other hand, two triangles are needed
served with triangular elements [2]: flat constant-
to replace one quadrilateral, so there is more inter-
strain triangles without drilling DOF are very
element membrane-bending coupling with triangles
accurate in the hemisphere problem. The twisted strip
than with quadrilaterals for a given number of nodes,
problem clearly shows the need for the warping
the smaller span of the triangle reduces the tendency
correction if elements are thin. Without the warping
toward membrane locking. If the tendency for mem-
correction, deflection ratios in the last line of Table
brane locking in the quadrilateral can be reduced it
1 become 0.0001 and 0.0003. The regular meshes in
may prove to be a very effective element.
Figs 5-7 do not result in warped elements. With the
pinched cylinder of Fig. 6, numerical tests in which
nodes were relocated so that elements became warped
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