...Yan Shang; Huanpu Wu Purpose The paper aims to propose two new 8-node quadrilateral membrane elements with good distortion tolerance for the modified couple stress elasticity based on the unsymmetric finite element method (FEM). Design/methodology/approach The nodal rotation degrees of freedom...

... of the available robust membrane elements. Originality/value According to the attained results, the proposed element performs better than the well-known displacement-based elements such as linear strain triangular element, Q4 and Q8 and even is comparable with robust modified membrane elements. Mohammad...

... problem-dependent parameter that may influence the results. The spurious zero-energy mode is stabilized in a careful way that preserves the true drilling rotational degrees of freedom (DOFs). Originality/value Several works dealing with membrane elements with vertex rotational DOFs have been published...

...Yan Shang; Song Cen; Zheng-Hua Qian; Chenfeng Li Purpose This paper aims to propose a simple but robust three-node triangular membrane element with rational drilling DOFs for efficiently analyzing plane problems. Design/methodology/approach This new element is developed within the general...

... triangular flat shells developed by combining an excellent membrane element (OPT) with three outstanding plate bending elements (DKT, RDKTM and DST-BK), respectively, are used to study this phenomenon. Benchmark tests are implemented to evaluate the performance of three selected plate elements...