Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

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Computers and Structures

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element in nonlinear analysis

Chaemin Lee, Dong-Hwa Lee, Phill-Seung Lee ⇑
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell finite element for nonlinear analysis. The strain-
Received 17 March 2021 smoothed MITC3+ shell element, recently developed for linear analysis, significantly improves the mem-
Accepted 8 February 2022 brane behavior of the MITC3+ shell element while retaining its excellent bending behavior. The achieve-
Available online 2 April 2022
ment is attained by adopting the strain-smoothed element (SSE) method to the membrane strain field. To
extend its formulation to nonlinear analysis, the total Lagrangian formulation is employed allowing for
Keywords: large displacements and rotations. Through various numerical examples, we verify that the strain-
3-node shell element
smoothed MITC3+ shell element also shows the superior performance in geometrical and material non-
MITC method
Membrane behavior
linear analyses.
Geometrical nonlinear analysis Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Material nonlinear analysis
Strain smoothing

1. Introduction element was developed for linear and nonlinear analyses [23,24].
The element formulation is based on the MITC method to reduce
Shell structures, due to their excellent strength to weight ratio, shear locking for out-of-plane bending behaviors. The shell ele-
have been widely used for manufacturing automobiles, airplanes, ment shows almost optimal convergence behavior in bending-
and ships. Linear and nonlinear analyses are essential for the dominated shell problems. However, shear locking for in-plane
strength evaluation of structures. In particular, nonlinear analysis bending behaviors was not treated and thus its membrane perfor-
is becoming more and more popular. The finite element method mance is the same as that of the displacement-based 3-node trian-
is the main tool for such analysis of shell structures; in this gular shell element.
method, it is important to use shell finite elements that provide The enriched MITC3+ shell element significantly enhances the
consistently reliable solutions in both linear and nonlinear analy- membrane behavior of the MITC3+ shell element by using interpo-
ses [1–4]. lation covers, but it requires 12 additional degrees of freedom
Shell finite element solutions frequently deteriorate when finite (DOFs) per element [26]. Recently, adopting the strain-smoothed
element discretization cannot accurately approximate the bending element (SSE) method, the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element
displacement fields. This phenomenon, called locking, becomes has been developed for linear analysis of general shell structures
even more severe when the shell thickness is smaller. Therefore, [28]. The SSE method is one of the strain smoothing techniques
in the development of effective shell finite elements, it is essential [28–46]. The SSE method can effectively mitigate the overly stiff
to alleviate locking, typically shear locking and membrane locking. membrane behavior of finite elements without introducing extra
Otherwise, undesirable overly stiff bending and membrane behav- DOFs. The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element shows very com-
iors are observed in the finite element solutions. Various locking petitive performance compared with existing shell elements [28].
alleviation schemes have been proposed, including the reduced So far, the element has been employed only for linear analysis.
integration, assumed strain and enhanced strain methods [5–27]. In this paper, we present the formulation of the strain-
Among them, the mixed interpolation of tensorial components smoothed MITC3+ shell finite element for nonlinear analysis. The
(MITC) method has been successfully employed to develop effec- total Lagrangian formulation is used, allowing for large displace-
tive plate and shell elements [15–27]. ments and rotations. The MITC method is employed for the trans-
However, most of these methods were not effective for triangu- verse shear strain fields. The SSE method is adopted for membrane
lar shell elements. Recently, the 3-node MITC3+ triangular shell strain fields of the MITC3+ shell element, leading to the tangential
stiffness matrix and internal force vector. The nonlinear perfor-
mance of the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element is evaluated
⇑ Corresponding author. through various numerical examples. This study shows that the
E-mail address: [email protected] (P.-S. Lee). strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element originally proposed for

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruc.2022.106768
0045-7949/Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

linear analysis can be directly extended for nonlinear analysis and 2.1. Geometry and displacement interpolations
produces reliable solutions in nonlinear analysis.
Using the natural coordinates r, s, and n, the geometry interpo-
lation of the MITC3+ shell finite element in the configuration at
2. Strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element time t, seen in Fig. 1, is given by [23,24]
t
xðr; s; nÞ ¼ t xm þ n t xb with
In this section, we present the total Lagrangian formulation of P P ð1Þ
the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element for extension to nonlin-
t
xm ¼ 3i¼1 hi ðr; sÞ t xi ; t xb ¼ 12 4i¼1 ai f i ðr; sÞ t Vin ;
ear analysis. In the formulation, the left superscript t, which usu-
where t xi is the position vector of node i in the configuration at time
ally denotes time for dynamic analysis, represents load step for
static analysis [1,24]. t, ai is the shell thickness at node i, t Vin is the director vector at node i
in the configuration at time t, hi ðr; sÞ are the standard finite element
shape functions, and f i ðr; sÞ are the shape functions involving the
cubic bubble function f 4 corresponding to the internal node 4:
h1 ¼ 1  r  s; h2 ¼ r; h3 ¼ s; ð2Þ

f 1 ¼ h1  13 f 4 ; f 2 ¼ h2  13 f 4 ; f 3 ¼ h3  13 f 4 ;
ð3Þ
f 4 ¼ 27rsð1  r  sÞ:
In Eq. (1), the director vector of the internal node in the config-
uration at time 0 is obtained by
1 0 1 
a4 0 V4n ¼ a1 Vn þ a2 0 V2n þ a3 0 V3n : ð4Þ
3
The incremental displacement vector u from the configuration
at time t to the configuration at time t þ Dt is

uðr; s; nÞ ¼ tþDt xðr; s; nÞ  t xðr; s; nÞ; ð5Þ

and thus
X
3
nX 4  
Fig. 1. Geometry of the MITC3+ shell finite element. uðr; s; nÞ ¼ hi ðr; sÞui þ ai f i ðr; sÞ tþDt Vin  t Vin ; ð6Þ
i¼1
2 i¼1

Fig. 2. Nonlinear kinematics of the MITC3+ shell element. The covariant base vectors at r ¼ s ¼ n ¼ 0 in the initial (time 0), previous (time t), and current (time t þ Dt)
configurations are plotted.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Fig. 3. Tying points for the assumed transverse shear strain fields of the MITC3+ shell finite element. The points (A)-(C) are also Gauss integration points.

in which ui is the vector of incremental nodal displacements at in which ul and uq are the linear and quadratic parts of the incre-
node i. mental displacement vector u, respectively.
The difference between two director vectors at successive times
in Eq. (6) is defined as follows by considering up to quadratic order
2.2. Green-Lagrange strain
[24]

tþDt 1 In this section, the Green-Lagrange strain of the MITC3+ shell

Vin  t Vin ¼ hi  t Vin þ hi  ðhi  t Vin Þ
2 element is formulated for the nonlinear analysis. The initial (time
with hi ¼ ai t Vi1 þ bi t Vi2 ; ð7Þ 0), previous (time t), and current (time t þ Dt) configurations are
depicted in Fig. 2.
and this can be rewritten as

tþDt 1
Vin  t Vin ¼ ai t Vi2 þ bi t Vi1  ða2i þ b2i Þ t Vin ; ð8Þ
2
where t Vi1 and t Vi2 are the unit vectors orthogonal to t Vin and to
each other, and ai and bi are the incremental rotations of the direc-
tor vector t Vin about t Vi1 and t Vi2 , respectively, at node i.
Substituting Eq. (8) into Eq. (6), the incremental displacement
vector can be expressed as
uðr; s; nÞ ¼ um þ nðub1 þ ub2 Þ ð9aÞ
with
X
3
um ¼ hi ðr; sÞui ; ð9bÞ
i¼1

1X 4  
ub1 ¼ ai f i ðr; sÞ ai t Vi2 þ bi t Vi1 ; ð9cÞ
2 i¼1
Fig. 4. Finite element discretization of a shell structure. A target element e and its
1X 4 h t i three adjacent elements k (k ¼ 1, 2, 3) are colored.
ub2 ¼ ai f i ðr; sÞ a2i þ b2i Vin : ð9dÞ
4 i¼1

The incremental displacement vector in Eq. (9a) can be grouped

as
ul ¼ um þ nub1 ; uq ¼ nub2 ; ð10Þ

Table 1
Tying points for the assumed transverse shear strain fields of the MITC3+ shell finite
element. The distance d is specified in Fig. 3, and d ¼ 1=10000 is used [23,24].

Tying points r s
(A) 1/6 1/6
(B) 2/3 1/6
(C) 1/6 2/3
(D) 1/3 + d 1/3 – 2d
(E) 1/3  2d 1/3 + d Fig. 5. Convected coordinate systems for strain smoothing in shell elements. The
(F) 1/3 + d 1/3 + d figure illustrates the strain smoothing between the target element e and the 1st
adjacent element.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

The covariant base vectors at time t are given by

@ tx
t
gi ¼ with r1 ¼ r; r2 ¼ s; r 3 ¼ n; ð11Þ
@r i
and the covariant base vectors at time t and time 0 have the follow-
ing relation:
@ tu t
t
gi ¼ 0 gi þ t u;i with t u;i ¼ ; u ¼ t x  0 x: ð12Þ
@ri
The covariant Green-Lagrange strain components in the config-
uration at time t with respect to the reference configuration at time
0 are given by
1 t 
t
e ¼ g  t gj 0 gi 0 gj with i; j ¼ 1; 2; 3; ð13Þ
0 ij
2 i
and their in-plane strain components (i,j ¼ 1, 2) are expressed as
[27]
2 t b2
t
0 ije ¼ t0 emij þ nto eb1
ij þ n o nij with i; j ¼ 1; 2; ð14aÞ
Fig. 7. Scordelis-Lo roof and a 14  14 mesh.
in which
1 t  @ t xm @ t xb
t m
e ¼ xm;i t xm;j  0 xm;i  0 xm;j ; ð14bÞ with t
xm;i ¼ ; t
xb;i ¼ :
0 ij
2 @r i @ri

1  t    The incremental covariant Green-Lagrange strain components

t b1
0 ije ¼ xm;i  t xb;j þ t xm;j  t xb;i  0 xm;i 0 xb;j þ 0 xm;j  0 xb;i ; are defined by
2
ð14cÞ 1
e ¼ tþD t0 eij  t0 eij ¼ ðu;i  t gj þ t gi  u;j þ u;i  u;j Þ with
0 ij
2
1t  @u
t b2
0 ije ¼ xb;i  t xb;j  0 xb;i  0 xb;j ð14dÞ u;i ¼ : ð15Þ
2 @ri

Fig. 6. Strain smoothing in shell elements: (a) Strain smoothing between the target element e and each adjacent element k (k ¼ 1, 2, 3). (b) Strain smoothing within element
and construction of smoothed strain field through three Gauss integration points.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Table 2
Relative errors in the displacement ( wref  wh =wref  100) at point C for each load
step for Scordelis-Lo roof problem in elastic analysis.

Load step Relative error Reference solution

MITC3+ Smoothed MITC3+
1 3.647 1.414 0.845
2 2.974 1.233 1.292
3 2.401 1.009 1.657
4 10.183 0.615 2.464
5 9.461 1.679 3.393
6 9.657 1.655 4.223
7 9.233 1.216 4.910
8 8.646 0.763 5.440
9 8.225 0.454 5.846
10 7.774 0.290 6.169

Table 3
Relative errors in the displacement ( v ref  v h =v ref  100) at point D for each load
step for Scordelis-Lo roof problem in elastic analysis.

Load step Relative error Reference solution

MITC3+ Smoothed MITC3+
1 5.534 2.743 0.025
2 4.625 5.172 0.028
3 6.098 9.000 0.021
4 47.175 2.587 0.069
5 27.392 5.398 0.252
6 25.779 4.829 0.486
7 25.078 3.484 0.736
8 23.257 2.341 0.963
9 21.874 1.542 1.156
10 21.190 1.081 1.318

 
1 @ul @ul 1 @uq t @uq 1 T
0 gij ¼  þ g þ t gi ¼ U Nij U; ð16cÞ
2 @ri @r j 2 @ri j @r j 2

Fig. 8. Load-displacement curves (wC and v D ) for Scordelis-Lo roof problem in

in which 0 eij and 0 gij are the linear and nonlinear parts of the
elastic analysis. incremental strain, respectively, Bij and Nij are the corresponding
strain–displacement matrices, and U is the vector of incremental
nodal displacements and rotations for all element nodes [24]. In
By retaining the strain terms up to the second order of addition, the strain variations are defined as follows
unknowns, the incremental covariant strain components are
approximated as d 0 eij ¼ Bij dU; d 0 gij ¼ dUT Nij U: ð16dÞ

e ¼ 0 eij þ 0 gij with i; j ¼ 1; 2; 3;

0 ij ð16aÞ The in-plane components (i,j ¼ 1, 2) of the incremental covari-
ant strain in Eq. (16a) can be decomposed as follows. For the linear
and
part,

1 @ul t @ul 2
0 eij ¼ g þ t gi ¼ Bij U; ð16bÞ 0 eij ¼ 0 em
ij þ n 0 eij þ n 0 eij with i; j ¼ 1; 2;
b1 b2
ð17aÞ
2 @ri j @r j

Fig. 9. Final deformed configuration of Scordelis-Lo roof obtained using the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element in elastic analysis. Only one-quarter of the structure is
modeled for finite element analysis due to symmetry. The deformed shape of the entire structure is visualized through mirroring.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

with
1 t 
m
0 eij ¼ xm;i  um;j þ t xm;j  um;i ; ð17bÞ
2

1t 
b1
0 eij ¼ xm;i  ub1;j þ t xm;j  ub1;i þ t xb;i  um;j þ t xb;j  um;i ; ð17cÞ
2

1t 
b2
0 eij ¼ xb;i  ub1;j þ t xb;j  ub1;i ; ð17dÞ
2
and, for the nonlinear part,
2
g ¼ 0 gmij þ n 0 gb1
0 ij ij þ n 0 gij with i; j ¼ 1; 2;
b2
ð18aÞ

with
1
g ¼ um;i  um;j ;
m
0 ij ð18bÞ
2

1 
g ¼
b1
0 ij um;i  ub1;j þ um;j  ub1;i þ t xm;i  ub2;j þ t xm;j  ub2;i ; ð18cÞ
2
Fig. 11. Load-displacement curves (wC ) for Scordelis-Lo roof problem in elasto-
plastic analysis.

Fig. 10. von Mises stress distributions of Scordelis-Lo roof at final load level in elastoplastic analysis obtained using N  N meshes (N ¼ 24 and 34) of the MITC3+ and strain-
smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. The reference distribution is obtained using a 46  46 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

1 
0 ij ¼
gb2 ub1;i  ub1;j þ t xb;i  ub2;j þ t xb;j  ub2;i : ð18dÞ
2
The in-plane components (i,j ¼ 1, 2) of the incremental covari-
ant Green-Lagrange strain in Eqs. (17a)-(18d) can be grouped as

0 ije ¼ 0 emij þ n 0 eb1

ij þ n 0 eij
2 b2
ð19aÞ

with
m
0 ije ¼ 0 emij þ 0 gmij ; ð19bÞ

b1
0 ije ¼ 0 eb1
ij þ 0 gij ;
b1
ð19cÞ

b2
0 ije ¼ 0 eb2
ij þ 0 gij :
b2
ð19dÞ
m
where e denotes the incremental covariant membrane strain, and
0 ij
b1
0 ije and 0 eb2
ij denote the incremental covariant bending strains.

Fig. 12. Cantilever beam subjected to tip moment, and regular and distorted 20  2 2.3. Assumed transverse shear strain
meshes.

The assumed transverse shear strain fields of the MITC3+ shell

element are employed to alleviate shear locking [23,24]. The trans-
verse shear strain components in Eq. (16a) are replaced by

Fig. 13. Load-displacement curves (uA and v A ) for the cantilever beam subjected Fig. 14. Load-displacement curves (uA and v A ) for the cantilever beam subjected
to tip moment when the regular mesh is used. to tip moment when the distorted mesh is used.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Fig. 15. Deformed configurations of the cantilever beam subjected to tip moment at several load levels obtained using (a) regular 20  2 mesh of the MITC3+ shell elements,
(b) regular 20  2 mesh of the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, and (c) regular 40  4 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements (reference).

Fig. 16. Cantilever plate subjected to end shear force.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

eMITC3þ
0 i3 ¼ 0 eMITC3þ
i3 þ 0 gMITC3þ
i3 with i; j ¼ 1; 2; ð20aÞ smoothed strain field of the target element [28,45,46]. Considering
that the shell elements do not in general lie on the same plane, we
and match the base coordinate systems of the strains of the target and
 adjacent elements before strain smoothing.
2 1 B 1  1
eMITC3þ
0 13 ¼ B
0 13e  0 e23 þ 0 eA13 þ 0 eA23 þ 0 ^cð3s  1Þ; ð20bÞ The incremental covariant membrane strains of the target ele-
3 2 3 3 m;ðeÞ m;ðkÞ
ment 0 eln and of the k th adjacent element 0 eln at element cen-
 ters (r ¼ s ¼ 1=3 and n ¼ 0) are obtained using Eq. (19b). Then, we
2 1 C 1  1
eMITC3þ
0 23 ¼ C
0 23e  0e þ 0 eA13 þ 0 eA23 þ 0 ^cð1  3rÞ; ð20cÞ
3 2 13 3 3

where 0 ^c ¼ 0 eF13  0 eD13  0 eF23 þ 0 eE23 and the tying points (A)-(F) are
given in Fig. 3 and Table 1.
For the MITC3+ shell element, the two rotational DOFs of the
internal node can be statically condensed out at the element level
[23,24]. We use the 3-point Gauss integration in the r  s plane and
the 2-point Gauss integration in the n-direction to evaluate the
tangential stiffness matrix and internal force vector.

2.4. Smoothed membrane strain

Through the edges of a triangular element, there can be up to

three adjacent elements. Fig. 4 depicts a target element e and its
three adjacent elements k (k ¼ 1, 2, 3). In the SSE method, the Fig. 19. Slit annular plate subjected to lifting line force and a 6  30 mesh.
strains of all adjacent elements are fully used to construct the

Fig. 17. Load-displacement curves (wA ) for the cantilever plate subjected to end
shear force.

Fig. 18. Deformed configurations of the cantilever plate subjected to end shear
force at several load levels obtained using the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell Fig. 20. Load-displacement curves (wB and wC ) for the slit annular plate subjected
element. to lifting line force when a 6  30 mesh is used.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

transform the strains of the adjacent elements into the convected The smoothed incremental membrane strains in Eq. (22) are
coordinates of the target element, as follows assigned at three Gauss integration points, as follows, as shown
m;ðkÞ
in Fig. 6(b),
e
0 ij ¼0 elnm;ðkÞ ð ðeÞ gi  ðkÞ gl Þð ðeÞ gj  ðkÞ gn Þ with i; j; l; n ¼ 1; 2; ð21Þ
1 1
ð ^e
m;ð3Þ
þ 0 ^eij Þ;
m;ð1Þ
¼ ð 0 ^eij
m;ð1Þ
þ 0 ^eij Þ;
m;ðAÞ m;ð2Þ
0 ije ¼ 0 em;ðBÞ
where ðeÞ gi and ðkÞ gl are the covariant base vectors of the target ele- 2 0 ij ij
2
ment and the contravariant base vectors of the k th adjacent ele-
1
ð ^e þ 0 ^eij Þ with i; j ¼ 1; 2:
ment, respectively, in the configuration at time t, as shown in m;ðCÞ m;ð2Þ m;ð3Þ
0 ije ¼ ð23Þ
Fig. 5. The contravariant base vectors are obtained using the covari- 2 0 ij
ant base vectors and the relation ðkÞ gi  ðkÞ gj ¼ dji . Note that we Note that the smoothed strains in Eq. (23) are used directly at
neglect the influence of out-of-plane strains in the transformation the Gauss integration points to compute the tangential stiffness
[28]. matrix and internal force vector.
We then calculate the smoothed incremental membrane strains The incremental covariant membrane strain in Eq. (19b) is
(i; j ¼ 1, 2) between the target element e and the adjacent elements replaced by the smoothed membrane strain in Eq. (23), obtained
k (k ¼ 1, 2, 3), as follows using the SSE method. The incremental covariant transverse shear
strain in Eq. (16a) is replaced with the assumed transverse shear
m;ðkÞ 
0 ^ij AðeÞ þ 0 eij
m;ðkÞ m;ðeÞ
e ¼ 1
 ð 0 eij AðkÞ Þ with strain in Eq. (20a), obtained using the MITC method.
AðeÞ þAðkÞ ð22Þ
 The incremental covariant Green-Lagrange strain is trans-
AðkÞ ¼ ðnðeÞ  nðkÞ ÞAðkÞ formed into the incremental local Green-Lagrange strain, as
follows
where nðeÞ ¼ ðeÞ g3 =k ðeÞ g3 k and nðkÞ ¼ ðkÞ g3 =k ðkÞ g3 k are the unit nor-
mal vectors of the target and the k th adjacent elements calculated _ _
0 e ij ¼ Bkl ðti  gk Þðtj  gl ÞU ¼ Bij U; ð24aÞ
at element centers, respectively, AðeÞ and AðkÞ are the mid-surface
areas (n ¼ 0) of the target and the k th adjacent elements, respec-
 _ 1 1 _
tively, and AðkÞ is the area obtained by projecting AðkÞ onto the 0 gij ¼ UT Nkl ðti  gk Þðtj  gl ÞU ¼ UT Nij U; ð24bÞ
2 2
mid-surface plane of the target element, as shown in Fig. 6(a). If
there is no element adjacent to the k th edges of the target element, where ti is the base vectors for the local Cartesian coordinate sys-
_ _
we use 0 ^eij
m;ðkÞ m;ðeÞ
¼0 e ij instead. tem, and Bij and Nij are the strain–displacement matrices corre-

Fig. 21. Final deformed configurations of the slit annular plate subjected to lifting line force obtained using (a) 6  30 mesh of the MITC3+ shell elements, (b) 6  30 mesh of
the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, and (c) 12  60 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements (reference).

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

sponding to the linear and nonlinear parts of the incremental local Material nonlinearity is implemented using the von Mises plas-
strain, respectively. Their variations are defined as follows ticity model with the associated flow rule and linear isotropic
_ _
hardening. The constitutive equations are solved using the implicit
_ _
d0 e ij ¼ Bij dU; d0 gij ¼ dUT Nij U: ð24cÞ return mapping algorithm at each integration point [52]. In the
numerical examples, a Newton-Cotes quadrature of 5 points is
The tangent stiffness matrix t K and the internal force vector t0 F used through the thickness direction in the elastoplastic analysis,
for the element are calculated by whereas a Gauss quadrature of 2 points is used in the elastic
Z _ _ _
Z analysis.
_ _
t
K¼ BTij C ijkl Bkl dV þ Nij t0 S ij dV; ð25Þ
0V 0V

Z 3.1. Scordelis-Lo roof

_ _
t
0F ¼ BTij t0S ij dV; ð26Þ
0V We consider the Scordelis-Lo roof shell problem [4,18,26],
_ _
shown in Fig. 7. The shell is an arc of length L ¼ 25, radius
where C ijkl denotes the material law tensor, t0 S ij is the local second R ¼ 25, and uniform thickness of 0:25. It is subjected to a self-
Piola-Kirchhoff stress, and 0 V is the volume of the element in the weight loading f max ¼ 4500 per unit area. Young’s modulus is
configuration at time 0. E ¼ 4:32  108 and Poisson’s ratio is m ¼ 0. Both ends of the struc-
Due to the strain transformation in Eq. (21) and area projection ture are supported by rigid diaphragms, and due to the symmetry
in Eq. (22), the degree of strain smoothing is affected by the angle of the problem, we model only one-quarter of the structure.
between the target and adjacent elements (h in Fig. 5). The smooth- Detailed boundary conditions are as follows: u ¼ w ¼ 0 along BD,
ing effect is designed to gradually vanish as the angle approaches v ¼ a ¼ 0 along AC, and u ¼ b ¼ 0 along AB. In this problem, the
90 degrees. In addition, most strain smoothing methods, including shell shows a mixed bending-membrane behavior [18].
the SSE method, are effective when the geometry and material First, we perform the elastic analysis. The solutions are obtained
properties change smoothly. If they change rapidly, the methods with a 14  14 mesh of the MITC3+, enriched MITC3+, ICM Shell4,
may not be recommended.
Recently, a mathematical foundation for the convergence prop-
erties of the SSE method has been studied [47]. The study is
devoted to the theoretical aspects of the SSE method, including
observation of the strain smoothing operations, construction of
underlying variational principle, and convergence analysis.

3. Numerical examples

Through previous work on linear analysis, it has been verified

that the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element shows higher accu-
racy and computational efficiency than other competitive elements
[28].
In this section, we evaluate the performance of the strain-
smoothed MITC3+ shell element using several numerical examples
in the range of nonlinear analysis. The Newton-Raphson method is
used to solve the nonlinear equations at every load step with a con-
vergence tolerance of 0.1 percent of the relative incremental
energy [1].
The performance of the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element
(15 element DOFs) is compared with those of the MITC3+ shell ele-
ment (15 element DOFs) and the enriched MITC3+ shell element
(27 element DOFs). The MITC3+ shell element shows excellent
bending behaviors [23,24], but shows overly stiff membrane
behaviors. The enriched MITC3+ shell element exhibits improved
membrane performance by enriching the membrane displacement
field with interpolation covers, but it requires 12 additional DOFs
for an element [26,48,49]. In addition, the performance of the
strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element is compared with those of
4-node shell element with incompatible modes (in ADINA)
denoted by ICM Shell4 [15,50] and S4R 4-node shell element (in
ABAQUS) denoted by S4R [51].
For comparison purposes, displacements at specific locations,
von Mises stress distributions, and deformed configurations are
observed at several load steps. The convergence behaviors of the
finite element solutions are examined with increasing the number
of element layers. Regular and distorted meshes are considered,
and the total numbers of iterations to obtain converged solutions
by solving nonlinear equations are compared. The reference solu-
tions are obtained using a fine regular mesh of the MITC9 shell ele-
ments. The MITC9 element is known to satisfy the consistency and Fig. 22. Load-displacement curves (wA and wB ) for the slit annular plate subjected
ellipticity conditions, and yields well-converged solutions [16,20]. to lifting line force when a 10  80 mesh is used.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

MITC9, and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. The reference 3.2. Cantilever beam subjected to tip moment
solutions are calculated using a 32  32 mesh of the MITC9 shell
elements (21125 DOFs). Fig. 8 shows the load–displacement curves We consider a cantilever beam subjected to a tip moment
measured at points C and D. Tables 2 and 3 present the relative M max ¼ 10p, as shown in Fig. 12 [26]. The cantilever beam has unit
errors in the displacements at points C and D, respectively, for each thickness, and Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio are given as
load step. Fig. 9 depicts the final deformed configuration (at load E ¼ 1:2  103 and m ¼ 0:2, respectively. The tip moment is given
level f ¼ f max ), obtained using the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell so that the beam is sufficiently rolled up into a circular ring. The
element. Comparisons are made for the identical mesh, but the beam is modeled using regular and distorted 20  2 meshes of
DOFs used are 1125 for the MITC3+, ICM Shell4, and strain- the MITC3+, enriched MITC3+, and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell
smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, 2025 for the enriched MITC3+ elements, as shown in Fig. 12. The reference solutions are obtained
shell element, and 4205 for the MITC9 shell element. Nevertheless, using a regular 40  4 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements.
the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element shows high predictive Figs. 13 and 14 present the resulting load–displacement curves
capability among them. measured at point A for the regular and distorted meshes, respec-
Then, elastoplastic analysis is conducted for the given problem. tively. The deformed shapes of the beam at load levels
The same geometry, boundary conditions, and material properties M ¼ 0:25M max , 0:5M max , 0:75M max , and M max for the regular mesh
are used. The self-weight loading is now f max ¼ 120 per unit area. are depicted in Fig. 15. The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element
The solutions are calculated using N  N meshes (N ¼ 14, 24, and provides solutions closest to the reference solutions.
34) of the MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements.
The reference solutions are obtained using a 46  46 mesh of the
MITC9 shell elements. Initial yield stress is ry ¼ 1  105 and linear 3.3. Cantilever plate subjected to end shear force
hardening modulus is H ¼ 2  106 . The von Mises stress distribu-
tions at load level f ¼ f max for the MITC3+ and strain-smoothed A cantilever plate is subjected to a distributed shearing force
MITC3+ shell elements when N ¼ 24 and 34 are compared with pmax ¼ 4 per unit length at its free end, as shown in Fig. 16 [24].
the reference distribution in Fig. 10. The load–displacement curves The plate has a uniform thickness of 0:1, and material properties
measured at point C when N ¼ 14 are plotted in Fig. 11. The strain- are given as Young’s modulus E ¼ 1:2  106 and Poisson’s ratio
smoothed MITC3+ shell element produces significantly improved m ¼ 0. The plate is modeled using a 16  1 mesh of the MITC3+,
results, especially in stress prediction. S4R [51], and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. The refer-

Fig. 23. Convergence curves for the slit annular plate subjected to lifting line force for the various thicknesses 0.15, 0.03, and 0.006 (applied loads are pmax ¼ 100, 0.8, and
0.0064, respectively), and N  5N element meshes with N ¼ 4, 8, and 16. The relative error in the displacement at point B, i.e. Ed ¼ wref  wh =wref , is measured. The element
size is calculated by h ¼ 1=N.

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Fig. 24. von Mises stress distributions of the slit annular plate subjected to lifting line force at final load level in elastoplastic analysis. The solutions are obtained using a
12  60 mesh of the MITC3+ shell elements, a 12  60 mesh of the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, and a 16  80 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements (reference).

ence solutions are calculated using a 32  2 mesh of the MITC9

shell elements.
The load–displacement curves evaluated at loaded point A are
given in Fig. 17, and the deformed configurations obtained using
the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element at load steps
p ¼ 0:25pmax , 0:5pmax , 0:75pmax , and pmax are depicted in Fig. 18.
The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element retains the excellent
bending behavior of the MITC3+ shell element.

3.4. Slit annular plate subjected to lifting line force

We solve a slit annular plate problem as shown in Fig. 19

[26,53]. The shell has inner and outer radii of R1 ¼ 6 and R2 ¼ 10,
respectively, and a thickness of 0.03. The material properties are
given as E ¼ 2:1  107 and m ¼ 0. A transverse shearing force
pmax ¼ 0:8 per unit length is incrementally acting on one end of
the plate, while the other end is clamped.
The elastic analysis is first performed. The plate is modeled
using a 6  30 mesh of the MITC3+, enriched MITC3+, and strain-
Fig. 25. Column under compressive load (N ¼ 2). smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. We obtain the reference

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Fig. 26. Load-displacement curves (uA ) for the column under compressive load with Fig. 27. Load-displacement curves (v A ) for the column under compressive load
increasing the number of element layers N (N ¼ 2, 4, 8, and 16). with increasing the number of element layers N (N ¼ 2, 4, 8, and 16).

solutions using a 12  60 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements. The

load–displacement curves evaluated at two distinct points B and
C are presented in Fig. 20. The final deformed shapes obtained
using the MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements
are compared with the reference deformed shape in Fig. 21. The
strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element gives much better response
prediction than do the MITC3+ and enriched MITC3+ shell elements.
We solve the problem again using a 10  80 mesh of the MITC3+,
S4R [51], and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. Fig. 22
depicts the load–displacement curves evaluated at two distinct
points A and B. In this case, both the strain-smoothed MITC3+ and
S4R shell elements give almost converged results.
For convergence study, we consider the various thicknesses
0.15, 0.03, and 0.006 (applied loads are pmax ¼ 100, 0.8, and
0.0064, respectively), and N  5N element meshes with N ¼ 4, 8,
and 16. The degree of convergence is evaluated by the relative
error in the displacement at point B, that is, Ed ¼ wref  wh =wref .
Fig. 28. Normalized displacements (v h =v ref ) at point A for the column under
Fig. 23 depicts the convergence curves of the MITC3+ and strain-
compressive load at final load level for various numbers of element layers N (N ¼ 2,
smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. For all the thicknesses consid- 4, 8, and 16).

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

ered, the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element provides solutions are shown in Fig. 29. The von Mises stress distributions at final load
with improved accuracy. level in elastic analysis for the elements considered are depicted in
Then, elastoplastic analysis is performed for the same problem. Fig. 30. The solutions calculated using the strain-smoothed MITC3+
The plate is modeled using a 12  60 mesh of the MITC3+ and shell element agree very well with the reference solutions.
strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. Initial yield stress is
ry ¼ 9  103 and linear hardening modulus is H ¼ 1  105 . The 3.6. Truncated hemispherical shell
von Mises stress distributions at load level p ¼ pmax for the
MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements are depicted We last consider a truncated hemispherical shell of radius R ¼ 1
in Fig. 24. The reference distribution is calculated using a 16  80 subjected to distributed loads f x;max ¼ 10, f y;max ¼ 5, and
mesh of the MITC9 shell elements. The strain-smoothed MITC3+ f z;max ¼ 10 per unit area, as shown in Fig. 31. The shell has a thick-
shell element provides a smoother stress solution. ness of 0.01, and Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio are taken as
E ¼ 1  107 and m ¼ 0:3, respectively. A clamped boundary condi-
3.5. Column under compressive load tion is given along AC. The solutions are obtained using a 12  12
mesh of the MITC3+, MITC9, and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell
A compressive load Pmax ¼ 4:5  103 is incrementally acting on elements. The reference solutions are obtained using a 32  32
point A of a column, as shown in Fig. 25 [26]. The column has unit mesh of the MITC9 shell elements.
The load–displacement curves of the shell evaluated at point D
thickness, and material properties are taken as E ¼ 106 and m ¼ 0.
are given in Fig. 32. The DOFs used are 845 for the MITC3+ and
The column is modeled with N  5N meshes (N ¼ 2, 4, 8, and 16)
strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element, and 3125 for the MITC9
of the MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, and a
shell element. The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element gives
20  100 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements to obtain the reference
more accurate solutions than the MITC3+ shell element in this
solutions.
example.
Figs. 26 and 27 depict the load–displacement curves measured
at point A with increasing the number of element layers N (N ¼ 2,
4, 8, and 16) for the horizontal and vertical displacements, 4. Computational efficiency
respectively. Fig. 28 and Table 4 compare the displacements at
point A at load level P ¼ P max for the various N. The deformed We here give a comment on the computational cost associated
configurations at load levels P ¼ 0:5P max and P max , obtained using with strain smoothing. Strain smoothing improves the accuracy of
the MITC3+, strain-smoothed MITC3+, and MITC9 shell elements, the finite element solution without introducing additional DOFs.
However, it has some features that increase the computational
cost, such as a non-standard assembling procedure and an
enlarged bandwidth in the assembled stiffness matrix. Considering
the 7  7 and 14  14 meshes of the shell geometry in Fig. 7, Table 5
Table 4
Relative errors in the displacement ( v ref  v h =v ref  100) at point A at final load level
shows the DOFs, half-bandwidth, and the number of non-zero
for the column under compressive load. entries for the stiffness matrices of the MITC3+ and strain-
smoothed MITC3+ shell elements.
N MITC3+ Smoothed MITC3+
The previous study for linear analysis [28] shows that the
2 96.607 6.077 strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element has higher computa-
4 34.498 0.829
8 8.649 0.105
tional efficiency than the MITC3+ and enriched MITC3+ shell
16 2.202 0.033 elements. At a similar level of accuracy, the strain-smoothed
MITC3+ shell element requires the least computation time
Reference solution: v ref ¼ 10:773
among them.

Fig. 29. Deformed configurations of the column under compressive load at several load levels obtained using (a) 2  10 mesh of the MITC3+ shell elements, (b) 2  10 mesh of
the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements, and (c) 20  100 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements (reference).

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Fig. 30. von Mises stress distributions of the column under compressive load at final load level in elastic analysis obtained using N  5N meshes (N ¼ 4, 8, and 16) of the
MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. The reference distribution is obtained using a 20  100 mesh of the MITC9 shell elements.

Fig. 31. Truncated hemispherical shell: (a) Problem description. (b) A 12  12 mesh used for shaded domain in (a).

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

In this paper, in addition to that, we examine the number of

iterations that the Newton-Raphson method needs to converge.
Let us revisit the cantilever plate problem in Section 3.3. Table 6
gives the number of iterations for each load step for the MITC3+,
MITC9, and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements. The strain-
smoothed MITC3+ shell element requires the same number of iter-
ations as the MITC3+ and MITC9 shell elements in this problem.
We report that similar iteration counts are observed for the ele-
ments in other problems as well. These results show that the
strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element is still efficient in nonlinear
analysis.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, the formulation of the strain-smoothed MITC3+

shell finite element was extended to nonlinear analysis. We
employ the total Lagrangian formulation to describe large dis-
placements and rotations. The covariant strains of the MITC3+
shell element are decomposed and its membrane component is
smoothed using the strain-smoothed element (SSE) method.
The performance of the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element
was examined in various geometrical and material nonlinear
problems. We confirmed that the proposed element provides
highly accurate solutions without adopting additional DOFs,
and its accuracy is even comparable to that of the enriched
MITC3+ shell element using additional 12 DOFs per element
[26].
It has already been confirmed that the proposed element
passes the basic tests (the zero energy mode, isotropic element,
and patch tests), and provides excellent results compared with
other competitive elements in linear analysis [28]. When consid-
ering the results in both linear and nonlinear analyses, we can
conclude that the strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell element can
be used very powerfully for analysis of general shell structures.
In future studies, it will be valuable to extend the SSE method
to improve polygonal shell finite elements [27,46], to analyze
Fig. 32. Load-displacement curves (uD and wD ) for the truncated hemispherical structural dynamic problems [1,54], and to fit into the AMORE
shell problem. paradigm [55].

Table 5
DOFs, half-bandwidth, and the number of non-zero entries for the stiffness matrices of the MITC3+ and strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell elements for the shell geometry in Fig. 7.

Mesh Element DOFs Half-bandwidth Number of non-zero entries

77 MITC3+ 320 44 9650
Smoothed MITC3+ 320 82 17612
14  14 MITC3+ 1125 79 36425
Smoothed MITC3+ 1125 152 70007

Table 6
The number of iterations for each load step for the cantilever plate subjected to end shear force.

Load step MITC3+ Smoothed MITC3+ MITC9 Load step MITC3+ Smoothed MITC3+ MITC9
1 4 4 4 11 4 4 4
2 4 4 4 12 4 4 4
3 4 4 4 13 4 4 4
4 4 4 4 14 4 4 4
5 4 4 4 15 4 4 4
6 4 4 4 16 4 4 4
7 4 4 4 17 3 3 3
8 4 4 4 18 3 3 3
9 4 4 4 19 3 3 3
10 4 4 4 20 3 3 3
Total iteration number 76 76 76

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C. Lee, D. H. Lee and P. S. Lee Computers and Structures 265 (2022) 106768

Declaration of Competing Interest [25] Ko Y, Lee Y, Lee PS, Bathe KJ. Performance of the MITC3+ and MITC4+ shell
elements in widely-used benchmark problems. Comput Struct
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The authors declare that they have no known competing finan- [26] Jun H, Yoon K, Lee PS, Bathe KJ. The MITC3+ shell element enriched in
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared membrane displacements by interpolation covers. Comput Methods Appl
Mech Eng 2018;337:458–80.
to influence the work reported in this paper.
[27] Ko Y, Lee PS, Bathe KJ. The MITC4+ shell element in geometric nonlinear
analysis. Comput Struct 2017;185:1–14.
Acknowledgements [28] Lee C, Lee PS. The strain-smoothed MITC3+ shell finite element. Comput Struct
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This research was supported by the Defense Challengeable problems. Comput Mech 2007;39:859–77.
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