Review of the strain-based formulation for analysis of plane structures Part II: Evaluation of the numerical performance

In this part of the study, several benchmark problems are solved to evalu ate the performance of the existing strainbased membrane elements, which were reviewed in the first part. This numerical evaluation provides a basis for comparison between these elements. Detailed discussions are offered after each benchmark problem. Based on the attained results, it is con cluded that inclusion of drilling degrees of freedom and also utilization of higherorder assumed strain field result in higher accuracy of the elements. Moreover, it is evident that imposing the optimal criteria such as equilib rium and compatibility on the assumed strain field, in addition to reducing the number of degrees of freedom of the element, increases the convergence speed of the resulting strainbased finite elements.