SOLID FINITE-ELEMENTS THROUGH 3 DECADES

conventionally, solid finite elements have been looked upon as just ge neralizations of two-dimensional finite elements. In this article we t race their development starting from the days of their inception. Keep ing in tune with our perceptions on developing finite elements, withou t taking recourse to any extra variational techniques, we discuss a fe w of the techniques which have been applied to solid finite elements. Finally we critically examine our own work on formulating solid finite elements based on the solutions to the Navier equations.