Comparative investigation into membrane, shell and continuum elements for the rigid–plastic finite element analysis of two-dimensional sheet metal forming problems

Finite element analyses in the field of sheet metal forming have employed the membrane, shell and continuum elements. The membrane analysis needs a short computational time, but the bending effect cannot be considered at all. Shell analysis allows the consideration of bending effect; however it is less accurate than the continuum analysis. This paper presents a comparison of these analyses and experimental data for plane-strain conditions and considers the characteristics of the multi-layer model on the continuum analysis. The comparisons indicate a close agreement of all analyses with experimental data in the pure stretching field. For the bending field, it is shown that shell and continuum analyses have meaningful results. The multi-layer continuum analysis gives more detailed information according to the increase in the number of layers in the thickness direction.