An alternative assumed strain method Original Research Article

In this paper, an Alternative Assumed Strain (AAS) method is put forward, on the basis of a previous work. The method has two main features: the stresses are eliminated from the finite element formulation by satisfying the stress–strain equations with the assumed strains, which is much more convenient than the L2-orthogonal condition in Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS) method for developing finite elements; the stresses, obtained from the assumed strains with the stress–strain relations, are forced to satisfy the equilibrium equations identically to reduce the number of assumed strain parameters and to improve finite element efficiency. The method is applied to develop several variations of 3-node triangular and 4-node quadrilateral Mindlin plate elements. Numerical examples show that efficient elements could be obtained from the suggested method.