A New Eight Nodes Brick Finite Element Based on the Strain Approach

In this paper, a new three dimensional brick finite element based on the strain approach is presented with the purpose of identifying the most effective to analyze linear thick and thin plate bending problems. The developed element which has the three essential external degrees of freedom (U, V and W) at each of the eight corner nodes, is used with a modified elasticity matrix in order to satisfy the basic hypotheses of the theory of plates. The displacements field of the developed element is based on assumed functions for the various strains satisfying the compatibility and the equilibrium equations. New and efficient formulations of this element is discussed in detail, and the results of several examples related to thick and thin plate bending in linear analysis are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed element. The linear analyses using this developed element exhibit an excellent performance over a set of problems.