BASIC ELEMENT SHAPES

One Dimensional Elements

TWO DIMENSIONAL ELEMENTS

A Quadrilateral Element as an Assemblage of

Two or Four Triangular Elements.
Three-Dimensional Finite Elements. Axisymmetric Elements.
Finite Elements with Curved Boundaries
 DISCRETIZATION PROCESS
VARIOUS CONSIDERATIONS

1. TYPE OF ELEMENTS
2. SIZE OF ELEMENTS
3. LOCATION OF NODES
4. NUMBER OF ELEMENTS
5. SIMPLIFICATIONS AFFORDED BY THE PHYSICAL
CONFIGURATION OF THE BODY
6. FINITE REPRESENTATION OF INFINITE BODIES
7. NODE NUMBERING SCHEME
1. TYPE OF ELEMENTS
Three types of
elements, namely,
triangular plate elements
(for covers), rectangular
shear panels(for webs),
and frame elements (for
flanges), used in the
idealization of an Aircraft
Wing

Idealization of an Aircraft Wing Using Different Types of Elements.

 2. SIZE OF ELEMENTS

3. LOCATION OF NODES AT DISCONTINUITIES

 4. NUMBER OF ELEMENTS

Exact solution
Solution given by FEM

N0 Number of elements
No significant improvement beyond N0

5. SIMPLIFICATIONS AFFORDED BY
THE PHYSICAL CONFIGURATION OF
THE BODY
6. FINITE REPRESENTATION OF INFINITE BODIES

A Dam with Uniform Geometry and Loading.

7. NODE NUMBERING SCHEME

Stiffness matrices are banded and symmetric

Band Width (B) = (D + 1) . f

Where,
D is the maximum largest
difference in the node
numbers occurring for
all the elements of the
assemblage
f is the number of dofs at
each node
The bandwidth of the overall or global characteristic matrix
depends on i) the node numbering scheme and ii) the number of
degrees of freedom considered per node
Let the dof per node is 3
which is fixed

Band Width (B)

for node numbering along
shorter dimension
= (D + 1) . f = ((6-2)+1). 3
= 15

Band Width (B)

for node numbering along
longer dimension
= (D + 1) . f = ((22-2)+1). 3
= 63
Three-bay frame with rigid joints. 20 storeys high
Thus, a shorter bandwidth can be obtained simply by numbering the nodes
across the shortest dimension of the body.