A FORMULATION FOR THE 4-NODE QUADRILATERAL ELEMENT

A formulation for the plane 4-node quadrilateral finite element is developed based on the principle of virtual displacements for a deformable body. Incompatible modes are added to the standard displacement field. Then expressions for gradient operators are obtained from an expansion of the basis functions into a second-order Taylor series in the physical co-ordinates. The internal degrees of freedom of the incompatible modes are eliminated on the element level. A modified change of variables is used to integrate the element matrices. For a linear elastic material, the element stiffness matrix can be separated into two parts. These are equivalent to a stiffness matrix obtained from underintegration and a stabilization matrix: The formulation includes the cases of plane stress and plane strain as well as the analysis of incompressible materials. Further, the approach is suitable for non-linear analysis. There, an application is given for the calculation of inelastic problems in physically non-linear elasticity. The element is efficient to implement and it is frame invariant. Locking effects and zero-energy modes are avoided as well as singularities of the stiffness matrix due to geometric distortion. A high accuracy is obtained for numerical solutions in displacements and stresses.