AN ECONOMICAL ASSUMED STRESS BRICK ELEMENT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

In this paper, a highly economical 8-node brick element consolidated f rom the previous work on admissible matrix formulation and selective s caling is discussed. The element is modified from the Pian-Tong elemen t in a way that the latter's good bending response, applicability in n early incompressible materials and insusceptibility to mesh distortion are retained. Moreover, the selective scaling technique is incorporat ed such that the element can also be used thin plate/shell analysis. F ocus is on systematic and economical construction of the element stiff ness matrix. Using the present implementation which employs numerical integration, it is found that the element is less costly than the 8-no de displacement element. CPU time comparisons, benchmark problems and FORTRAN-subroutines are presented.