A linear quadrilateral shell element for laminated composites

The concentration of the present investigation is on the development of a quadrilateral shell element for the deformation analysis of composite laminates. For this purpose, a higher-order shell model with 12 parameters is adopted along with the three-dimensional state of stress. The principle of virtual work is implemented to derive the stiffness matrix and the load vector for the four-node shell element. In order to verify the performance of the higher-order shell element developed herein for the treatment of laminated composites, some benchmarks are solved and compared with solutions available in the literature.