Improvement on the 10-node tetrahedral element for three-dimensional problems

By decomposing the strain part of the conforming 10-node tetrahedral elemen t T10 and relaxing the compatibility condition for the constant strain term , the performance of the element can be improved. By introducing the incomp ressible condition in the high order strain term, the element can be made v ery efficient for the analysis of the nearly incompressible problem. Numeri cal results show that the modified element, in general, has better accuracy and reliability compared to the classical displacement-based tetrahedral e lement T10 for a wide range of structural problems, including the analysis of thin and slender structures. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights r eserved.