Large deformation analysis of shell structures using a corotational solid-shell element

An efficient locking-free 8-node solid-shell element is developed for geometrically nonlinear analysis of shell structures. The solid-shell element is developed based on the conventional brick solid element with only translational degrees of freedom. A initial coordinate system is created to orient the right thickness direction of the shell for each solid-shell element. The Assumed Natural Strain (ANS) method and the Enhanced Assumed strain (EAS) method are used to improve the linear performance of the element formulation. The corotational formulation is used to extend the linear element to geometrically nonlinear analysis. Numerical examples demonstrate the excellent performance of the present solid-shell element.