A NEW ONE-POINT QUADRATURE, GENERAL NONLINEAR QUADRILATERAL SHELL ELEMENT WITH PHYSICAL STABILIZATION

A new four-node shell element with a single-point quadrature to be use d for explicit time integration is presented in this paper. The physic al stabilization is applied, which enables explicitly evaluating the s tabilizing forces on basis of the general degenerated shell formulatio n and which does not require any input parameters. An optimized choice of the moduli is performed in order to compute the stabilized forces for non-linear material so that the element's behaviour is improved wi th respect to similar physical stabilization elements. The cost effici ency of the element is demonstrated by the numerical examples in compa rison with a fully integrated 4-node element. The new element is then implemented in and validated with the RADIOSS crash program. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.