Large Deformation Finite Element Analysis of Shells Degenerated Eight Nodes Shell Element

The analysis of shells structure represents one of the most challenging fields in many applications. This work presents the linear and nonlinear analysis of thin shell structures based on finite element eight nodes degenerated shell element which have five degrees of freedom per each node. A geometric nonlinear formulation based on the total Lagrangian formulation and using both geometric strains (Engineering Strains) and Green's strains was adopted in this work and the formulations were implemented into a nonlinear finite element program NONLAS. The solution of nonlinear equations is obtained by combining a step-by-step incremental/iterative procedure and the Modified Newton-Raphson method. The capability of the formulation is demonstrated by numerical examples and the results are compared with available solutions.