Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering (2021) 28:3049–3065

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-020-09489-z

ORIGINAL PAPER

A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree

of Freedom
Djamel Boutagouga1

Received: 17 January 2020 / Accepted: 27 August 2020 / Published online: 4 September 2020
© CIMNE, Barcelona, Spain 2020

Abstract
Membrane finite elements have gained increasing importance since the early years of the finite elements method due to
their convenience to a wide range of plane and 3D shell problems. Many research works have been focussing on membrane
elements with drilling rotation. These elements are plane stress finite elements with a rotational in-plane degree of freedom.
The main motivation for introducing the drilling rotation into membrane/shell elements is to improve the accuracy of the
model and to avoid the problem of singularity of the stiffness matrix of shell elements in a natural way. In this article, a
comprehensive review has been written for both new and expert researchers in the field. By summarizing the basic theories
that have been used, new researchers can get clarification on the relevant computational methods and, gradually get famil-
iarized with the advantages and drawbacks of each formulation. Expert researchers in the field can track-back the history of
membrane elements with drilling rotation through a comprehensive review of relevant references.

1 Introduction case, the plate element provides the out-plane stiffness while
the membrane element provides the in-plane stiffness.
In structural mechanics, membrane components are sheets As the in-plane state of strain can be described in terms
in space that offer stiffness only in the plane of the element. of the two in-plane translations (u and v) only, conventional
These structural components have no bending or transverse membrane elements require only two degrees of freedom
shear stiffness. Therefore, they can carry membrane forces at each node. As this family combines simplicity and effi-
only, and do not support or transmit any bending moment or ciency, flat shell elements have been widely used in struc-
transverse load. Membrane finite elements are generally tri- tural analysis. Several formulations of triangular and quad-
angular or quadrangular plane surface elements formulated rilateral membrane elements have been developed since the
in tow- or three-dimensional space; they are intended for early stages of the “Finite Elements Method” (FEM). With
modelling thin surfaces under in-plane loading. Membranes the introduction of Iso-parametric elements, membrane ele-
have several basic differences with plates in structural behav- ments received special attention and they were extensively
iour. Plate elements are different from membrane elements used in the analysis of plane elasticity and spatial shell prob-
in that they sustain transverse “out of plane” loading using lems. The simplest form of plane membrane elements is the
bending stresses while membrane elements sustain only tree-nodded “constant-strain triangle” (CST) that was first
membrane loading using in-plane stresses. Shell elements introduced by Courant [1] and Turner et al. [2]. Taig [3] pre-
are different from plate elements in that they combine bend- sented the first Iso-parametric version of the bilinear quad-
ing and membrane behaviours so they can carry in-plane rilateral element. Unfortunately, these two simple elements
and out of plane loadings. Shell finite elements can be plane were discovered to suffer from serious drawbacks of lock-
or curved elements. plane elements, commonly known as ing under a variety of situations. They generally exhibit a
flat shell elements, are the simplest ones as they combine slow convergence rate, and poor performance under in-plane
a plate-bending element with a membrane element. In this bending load due to the presence of spurious shear strain.
The four-nodded quadrilateral element also suffers from
* Djamel Boutagouga trapezoidal shape locking [4, 5]. These difficulties become
[email protected] much more severe with distorted mesh [6], or when handling
incompressible or nearly incompressible materials [7].
1
Civil Engineering Department, Laboratoire des Mines, Larbi
Tebessi University – Tebessa, Tébessa, Algeria

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Vol.:(0123456789)
3050 D. Boutagouga

In order to overcome these difficulties, higher-order ele- meaning that the resulting shell element with only five DOFs
ments were developed involving the mid-side nodes. The per nod has zero stiffness about the normal to the surface.
most famous is the six-node “Linear Strain Triangle” (LST) While assembling the element stiffness matrices to form the
element developed by de-Veubeke [8], and the eight-nodded global stiffness matrix, the absence of the in-plane rotational
quadrilateral element. Unfortunately, these higher-order stiffness in the shell element’s formulation leads to a singu-
elements are more computationally expensive compared larity in the global stiffness matrix whenever smooth shells
to lower-order elements with only corner nodes. Therefore, intersect.
improving lowe-order element’s behaviour will be more The drilling rotation DOF is defined as the in-plane rota-
efficient. tion around the shell element’s mid-surface normal. If this
The locking phenomenon is identified as an intrinsic diffi- rotational DOF is comprised in a shell element formula-
culty of all low-order elements based on the standard Galer- tion, the problem of the stiffness matrix singularity could
kin (displacement-based) formulation. This phenomenon is be obviously avoided. On the other hand, most finite ele-
caused by the overestimated stiffness of structures, which ment programs practise six nodal degrees of freedom, there-
leads to a considerable loss of convergence rate. Hence, the fore, the shell element formulation must provide a complete
problem of locking and other shortcomings of low order description of the rotational and translational DOFs. Then,
membrane elements have been the topic of many investiga- the definition of six DOFs for each node including the rota-
tions using several approaches. Among the earliest ones was tion θz around the shell mid-surface normal is required. This
the reduced integration technique by Zienkiewicz et al. [9] in-plane rotational DOF, so-called “drilling rotation”, has
and the incompatible modes method introduced by Wilson been introduced in shell elements formulation with various
et al. [10]. Subsequently, several contributions have been meanings, mainly for the following purposes:
introduced by using different concepts, for instance, but not
all: 1. To evade stiffness matrix singularity. A simple remedy
is to introduce fictitious stiffness with which no physical
• The deduced integration [9]; rotation is associated. Generally, this arbitrarily chosen
• The incompatible (non-conforming) modes [10, 11]; stiffness provides unsatisfactory results. The additional
• The free Formulation (energy orthogonal functions) [12, stiffness does not improve the in-plane bending behav-
13]; iour but rather makes the ‘parent’ element even stiffer.
• Mixed/Hybrid elements methods [14, 15]; Moreover, the resulting element cannot be easily con-
• The assumed strain method [16, 17]; nected with other types of elements in the modelling of
• The strain-based approach [18, 19]; complex structures.
• The enhanced strain method [20]; 2. To allow compatible connection with other kinds of ele-
• The quasi-confirming method [21, 22]; ments with rotational degrees of freedom such as beam
• The generalized conforming method [23]; and plate elements. To achieve this purpose, the incorpo-
• The quadrilateral area coordinate method [24, 25]; ration of the rotational DOF in the element’s formulation
• The drilling rotational degree of freedom [26–28]. is required.
3. To improve the convergence rate of low order (CST and
And several other contributions such as the individual Q4) membrane elements. The accuracy of membrane
element test [29], the assumed natural strain [30] and the elements with the drilling rotational DOF is intermedi-
rational finite element approach by [31]. ate between that of the linear and quadratic elements
with translations only but, with much smaller solution
time compared to the quadratic elements.
2 Drilling Rotational DOF
In order to evade stiffness matrix singularity, Zienkiewicz
Flat shell finite elements, which are a combination of plate and others [33–35] proposed to use a fictitious rotational
and membrane elements, typically have three translational stiffness in the direction of this DOF. The fictitious rota-
and two rotational degrees of freedom at a node. These shell tion must be defined in the way that it does not perturb the
elements are flat; therefore, a numerical deficiency arises local equilibrium of the finite element. Besides, the sum of
when the elements meeting at a node are all coplanar [32]. all additional terms must be null so, rigid rotations condi-
That deficiency arises from the fact that conventional mem- tion is always guaranteed. While this method satisfactorily
brane elements make use only of the nodal translational overcomes the stiffness matrix singularity problem, the
degrees of freedom (DOFs). Since the in-plane rotational additional fictitious rotational stiffness doesn’t improve the
DOFs are not included, the element has no stiffness corre- element behaviour, yet, it hardens the elements results and
sponding to the rotation normal to the plane of the element, it has no physical interpretation.

13
A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3051

Numerous efforts have been made to determine a rota- upgrade defined in terms of triangular area co-ordinates, rad-
tional stiffness with physical interpretation, in which, the ically improved the in-plane behaviour of the CST element.
coupling between the drilling rotation and displacement is However, the proposed element suffers from a spurious zero-
taken into account. This family of plane stress/strain ele- energy mode. Later, Allman [44] removed this shortcom-
ments is known as “membrane finite elements with drilling ing by using a cubic interpolation of the displacement field
rotation”. This feature has also been recognized as an attrac- in which, the mid-side normal component of displacement
tive approach to achieve intermediate accuracy between is incompatible along the element sides. The resulting ele-
linear and higher-order elements with translational DOFs ment is then incompatible; however, it can recover all rigid
only while comprising a computational effort greatly less body movements and all constant strain states for any mesh,
than higher-order elements. Without increasing the number therefore, it passes the patch test. By using a similar concept
of element’s nodes, the drilling rotation DOF improves the to that presented by Allman, Carpenter et al. [27] indepen-
performances of membrane elements through increasing the dently presented a triangular element with nodal in-plane
order of displacement interpolation by using nodal in-plane rotations formulated by using a geometric transformation of
rotations as additional DOFs. This additional DOF will also the LST’s mid-side normal displacement in terms of vertex
provide a desirable membrane component having the sixth rotations at the adjacent comer nodes. One point quadrature
DOFs in a flat shell element. So, as an accompanying advan- scheme was applied to evaluate the element stiffness matrix.
tage, the rotational DOF automatically takes care of the stiff- This under integrated element exhibited better results than
ness matrix singularity problem that affects coplanar and those given by the fully integrated element, but it resulted
nearly coplanar shell elements. Moreover, the incorporation in three spurious zero-energy modes. The three spurious
of the true physical in-plane rotational degree of freedom in modes of Carpenter et al. element [27] stiffness matrix were
the element’s formulation offers an adequate representation eliminated later in [45] by adding stabilization matrices, and
of the structural response when modelling stiffened panels in [46] using a spurious mode control procedure based on
and folded plates. Consequently, this approach leads to a assumed generalized strain technique.
class of improved membrane elements with better perfor- The formulations of Allman [26] and Carpenter et al. [27]
mance than that of those above-mentioned elements without are based on selecting a quadratic form for the side-normal
increasing the number of element’s nodes. displacement component un and a linear form for the tan-
gential component ut along each element side. Then, the
side-normal displacement at the mid-side node (k) depends
3 Early Formulations on the corner node rotations as:
lij (
Because of the aforementioned desirable properties, pk = 𝜔j − 𝜔i
)
(1)
researchers have been developing membrane finite elements 8
with drilling rotation DOF since the early stage of the finite where lij is the length of the element-side (ij), and ωi is the
elements method. However, early attempts of including the vertex rotation at node (i), see Fig. 1.
in-plane rotational DOF at corner nodes of membrane ele- Initially, the element is a 6-node triangular or an 8-node
ments: [13, 36–42] were unsuccessful. A detailed review of quadrilateral iso-parametric element. The above equation
these early papers can be found in [28]. so-called “linked interpolation” is then used to approximate
Successful progress was first made independently by the mid-side translational DOFs of the higher-order iso-par-
Allman [26] and Carpenter et al. [27] by introducing the ametric element, so that the mid-side DOFs are eliminated
concept of vertex rotation into the “Constant Strain Trian- at the expense of adding rotational DOFs at corner nodes.
gle” (CST) using the so-called “linked interpolation”, and In this way, any 6-node or 8-node membrane element can
by Bergan and Felippa [28] using the “Free Formulation” be converted into an element with comer node translational
(FF). Later by Cook [43] who showed that Allman’s equiva- and rotational DOFs.
lent element could be derived by a transformation technique Although triangular elements are more effective for dis-
between the LST and the triangular element with corner cretizing arbitrary geometries than quadrilaterals, quad-
node rotations. This transformation technique can also be rilateral elements are still attractive owing to their better
easily applied to the eight-nodded element to elaborate a convergence rate than that of triangular elements. The idea
four-node element with corner node rotations. of incorporating the in-plane rotational DOF into membrane
Allman [26] introduced the in-plane rotational DOF elements has extended to quadrilateral elements in: [43, 47]
into the constant strain triangular element’s formulation by independently. Cook [43] extended the interpolation by
choosing the side-normal and -tangential displacement com- Carpenter et al. [27] to a quadrilateral element using the
ponents to be quadratic and linear functions respectively in 8-node quadrilateral shape functions. Allman [47] derived
terms of corner nodes translations and vertex rotations. This

13
3052 D. Boutagouga

Fig. 1  Transformation of the

mid-side normal displacement

a quadrilateral element with rotational DOF assembled from due to the rotational nature of the additional DOFs. A zero-
four sub-triangles with vertex rotations, introducing thus a energy mode or mechanism is due to a specific configura-
provisional central node. In each sub-triangle, the displace- tion of nodal displacements and rotations that result in zero
ment field was expressed in terms of the vertex and centroid strains. Consequently, this zero strain energy mode results
displacements and rotations as in [26]. The central node’s in a singular stiffness matrix.
DOFs are then condensed at the element level to obtain a The first mechanism that is common in triangular and
four-nodded quadrilateral while the extra zero-energy mode quadrangular membrane elements with rotational DOF can
is suppressed using the Lagrangian multiplier technique. be raised and propagated through mesh due to the existence
Soon, after the first successful incorporation of the rota- of a particular configuration, in which, all nodal rotations in
tional DOF into membrane elements, several similar triangu- an element have the same value: 𝜔1 = 𝜔2 = 𝜔3 = 𝜔4 ≠ 0 .
lar and quadrilateral elements have been presented, notably This configuration is associated with zero strains and leads
those in [48–56]. to a rank deficiency stiffness matrix. This mechanism can
be avoided by setting one nodal rotation of the mesh to zero.
The second mechanism which is exhibited only by quad-
4 Weaknesses of Displacement‑Based rilateral elements outcomes from the specific { combination
Elements of nodal rotations that corresponds to: 𝜔 = 1 −1 1 −1 .
}

This mechanism coincides with the well-known hourglass

The concept proposed by Allman [26] and Carpenter et al. mode induced by the use of (2 × 2) reduced integration for
[27] based on the “liked interpolation” still represents the quadrilateral elements. It results with zero strains at nodal
theoretical support for the development of triangular and integration points, and hence, leads to a rank deficient stiff-
quadrangular membrane finite elements with rotational ness matrix.
degree of freedom. This formulation, however, suffers from
several weaknesses:
4.3 Patch Test Failure
4.1 The Rotational DOF
As a consequence of the spurious zero-energy mode asso-
ciated with the linked interpolation, these elements fail to
The major shortcoming is the type of rotational DOF used
pass the one-element constant strain/stress patch test when
in Allman’s [26] and Carpenter et al. [27] formulation. The
no rotational DOF is constrained. A finite element that fails
vertex rotation adopted as rotational DOF in the above-
to pass the patch test can’t be reliable because, convergence
mentioned formulation does not represent the true in-plane
to the correct solution is not guaranteed. Note that, setting
drilling rotational DOF. The true drilling rotation is pro-
one nodal rotation to zero is required for these elements to
vided by continuum mechanics as the “skew-symmetric”
pass the patch test.
component of the displacement gradient. In fact, the vertex
rotation DOF has no physical interpretation in engineering
applications. Moreover, it is defined relative to the element 4.4 Excessive Rotational Field
edges, which makes the assembly with other elements with
rotational DOF inconsistent. Numerical benchmarks on these elements show that, if the
spurious zero-energy modes are not properly controlled, the
4.2 Spurious Zero‑Energy Modes predicted rotations and even displacements can be consid-
erably in error. These elements tend to envisage excessive
The second drawback of the above-mentioned linked inter- rotational field especially when concentrated moment load-
polation is the emersion of spurious zero-energy modes ing type is applied.

13
A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3053

5 Spurious Modes Control original stiffness matrix have the same dimension, and 𝛷1 is
the first spurious mode configuration.
Since the early stage of the finite elements method, consid-
1 ∑4
erable research has been devoted to effectively eliminate 𝛷1 = (𝜔i − 𝜑0 ) (4)
4 i=1
the spurious zero-energy modes due to reduced integra-
tion. Consequently, several reliable techniques have been The second spurious mode that results from the}specific
proposed to stabilise elements’ stiffness matrix and hence combination of nodal rotations 𝜔 = 1 −1 1 −1 can be
{

restrain these spurious modes. A stabilised stiffness matrix stabilized using the stabilization function in the penalty form:
is a stiffness matrix with artificially raised rank. An ele-
ment with zero-energy modes control mast have a stabi- P2 = 𝛿 ⋅ V ⋅ G ⋅ 𝛷22 (5)
lised stiffness matrix i.e. additional stiffness terms are
𝛷2 is the second spurious mode configuration.
included to prevent it from going into such zero-energy
modes. Similar techniques have been used to control spu- 1
𝛷2 = (𝜔 − 𝜔2 + 𝜔3 − 𝜔4 ) (6)
rious zero-energy modes due to drilling DOF and miti- 4 1
gate its related problems such as the patch test failure and
Cook [57, 58] noticed that the method proposed in [50]
excessive rotational field:
leads to a slight failure of the patch test. He applied the same
concept to triangular and quadrilateral elements. However, for
the triangular element [57], he used an additional matrix that
5.1 The Constraint Method
provides an additional elastic restraint to nodal drilling rota-
tions. For the quadrilateral element [58] he applied the restraint
Allman [47] proposed a quadrilateral element assembled
in [50] to the four overlapping sub-triangles, and then, the four
from four sub-triangles. He used the static condensation
restraints are added together. Both elements have rank suffi-
technique to eliminate the central node. He proposed a sta-
cient, no mechanisms and pass the patch test.
bilization mechanism for the quadrilateral element by forc-
It is reported in several references that in case of shell
ing the central node drilling rotation to be equal to the mean
elements, the element exhibits membrane locking when the
value of the external nodal drilling DOFs by means of the
dimensionless scaling factor is taken equal to one, especially
Lagrangian multiplier.
for element warped geometry [58–60].
Macneal and Harder [50] proposed a refined element with
Several similar penalty functions were used in literature,
controlled spurious modes by adding auxiliary strain func-
for instance: [59–62].
tions to Allman’s element. Particular attention is given to
It is noticed that this stabilization scheme of the second
the control of the two aforementioned spurious modes and
spurious mode is satisfactory for elements with rectangular
to the refinement of strains, to pass the patch test. In this
shape, but not for irregular ones. Wisniewski and Turska [62]
work, mechanisms are restrained by applying a stabilization
propose to improve the stabilization as follows: The second
matrix. The stabilization matrix consists of an additional
spurious mode is rewritten as:
stiffness matrix that reflects an energy penalty term obtained
through the implementation of a relationship between nodal 1 T
𝛷2 = h 𝜔I (7)
rotations and the element rotation determined from nodal 4
translations. The first spurious mode is treated by adding
where ωI = [ω1, ω2, ω3, ω4]T are the nodal drilling rotations,
the following equation to the system of the elemental equi-
and h = [1, −1, 1, −1]T is the hourglass vector. Then, instead
librium equations as a penalty function:
of 14 h one can use the γ-vector of the γ-stabilization method
1 that was proposed in [63] to stabilize one-integration point
𝜑0 = (𝜔 + 𝜔2 + 𝜔3 + 𝜔4 ) (2)
4 1 elements. Using the γ-vector, the Ф2 mode is re-defined as:
where 𝜙0 , is the element’s centroid rotation. 1 T
𝛷2 = 𝛾 𝜔I (8)
The associated energy function in the penalty form is: 4

P1 = 𝛿 ⋅ V ⋅ G ⋅ 𝛷12 (3) where

where δ is a dimensionless scaling factor assumes a very 1[

h − (hT S1 )b1 − (hT S2 )b2 (9)
]
𝛾=
low value, V is the element volume and G is the shear elastic 4
modulus that introduced to let the additional matrix and the

13
3054 D. Boutagouga

with:

1 [ T 2 1 [ T 1 ]T ]T
(𝜂 S )𝜉 − (𝜉 T S2 )𝜂 , b2 = (𝜉 S )𝜂 − (𝜂 T S1 )𝜉 , 𝜉 = −1 1 1 −1 , 𝜂 = −1 −1 1 1 .
] ] [ [
b1 =
4A 4A

Besides, S1 and S2 are the vectors of projections of the nodal locking in shell elements. However, the orthogonality condi-
relative position vectors on t1 and t2, and A = 4jc. This modi- tion generally decreases the element accuracy.
fication considerably improves the performance of irregular
elements. 5.4 The Free Formulation

5.2 Mixed Formulations A key ingredient of the “free formulation” (FF) is the split
of the element stiffness matrix into a basic stiffness and a
A major drawback of the constraint method also called “Per- higher-order stiffness. The basic stiffness part is built for
turbation stabilisation” is the dimensionless stabilization coef- convergence whilst the higher-order stiffness is designed for
ficients that have to be determined a priori, which makes the accuracy and numerical stability of the finite element. In
element “parameter-dependent”. In fact, even if a scaling factor order to pass the patch test, the strain field is selected such
is well chosen for a particular problem, it cannot guarantee the that the constant modes are orthogonal to the higher-order
same performance for other cases. Hence fore, another sta- modes [28].
bilisation technique called “Physical stabilization” for which
artificial parameters are not required is commonly used. In this
formulations, spurious zero-energy modes are constrained by 5.5 Assumed Stress/Strain Hybrid Elements
using mixed variational principles. For instance, Ibrahimbe-
govic et al. [64] based on a modified mixed variational prin- In hybrid elements with drilling DOF, spurious modes usu-
ciple, have introduced a formulation based on an independ- ally can be stabilized by higher-order stress modes. So, one
ent rotational field. In this formulation, nodal rotation DOFs must consider that three constant stress modes should be
and the element average rotation are related in the variational used to represent rigid-body motions. Then, a minimum
statement by means of the Lagrangian multiplier or the pen- number of higher-order stress modes is necessary depend-
alty method. However, Exact enforcement of this constraint, ing on the number of DOFs in order to avoid mechanisms.
when full integration is used, will result in a type of locking Hence, for an efficient assumed stress field, the number of
that deteriorates the element performance as in the method stress modes (m) should satisfy:
proposed by Macneal and Harder [50] when the dimension- m ≥ n−r (11)
less parameter is taken as unity. Nevertheless, this method is
more effective in controlling the excessive rotation field as with n stands for the total number of nodal DOFs, and r for
presented in [65]. the number of rigid body motions of the finite element. If
Eq. 11 is not satisfied, rank deficiencies arise. Furthermore,
5.3 Strain Modes Orthogonality it is assumed that the internal stress field is designed such
that the constant stress modes are orthogonal to the higher-
The patch test is based on the idea that the stress state in an order modes in an integral sense. Note that, increasing the
element will approach a constant stress state when the mesh number of stress modes leads to an increase in the element
is continuously refined. Hence in the spirit of the patch test, stiffness. Nevertheless, spurious zero-energy modes can
in this method, it is assumed that the strain field du to drill- come out even when Eq. 11 is satisfied [61, 70, 71].
ing rotations is orthogonal to the constant stress state in an
integral sense.
Then, in order to make the strain field due to Allman’s inter- 5.6 Micropolar Elasticity
polation orthogonal to constant stress terms, this strain must
be replaced by: In the Coserat micropolar continuum theory, rotations of a
point are considered as independent degrees of freedom with

A ∫A
𝜀̄ = 𝜀 −
1
𝜀 dA (10) physical meaning, and hence, any treatment of the relation-
ship between displacement and rotational fields is avoided.
For instance [72, 73] developed membrane elements with no
This method used in [66–69] eliminates the spurious mode
spurious zero-energy modes using the micropolar elasticity
efficiently and also alleviates drilling rotation membrane
theory.

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A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3055

5.7 Addition of an Incompatible Cubic Mode element incorporates the true drilling rotation DOF provided
by continuum mechanics using an independent rotational
The addition of incompatible cubic modes represents an easy field. It also involves non-conforming displacement compo-
way to overcome rank deficiency du to drilling rotation and nents; So, the element is incompatible, rank sufficient, with
avoid stabilisation approaches based on constraints. In this no spurious modes and passes the patch test. The element,
approach, the additional cubic modes introduce a kinemati- however, involves two adjustable free parameters. With the
cal incoherence between the compatible displacement due to recommended parameters, the element performance seams
drilling DOFs and the strain field within the element, which to outperform those of [26, 27] elements. However, this ele-
permits to avoid the zero-strain state under equal rotation ment was tuned to the cantilever beam problem by choos-
configuration [44, 74]. ing optimum values of (a = 1.5 and p = 0.5) from numerical
experiments. This work was followed by another triangular
5.8 Modified Numerical Integration element [77] and a quadrilateral element [78]. Bergan and
Felippa [28] stated that “the drilling rotation provides by
In order to avoid the second spurious mode in quadrilateral continuum mechanics as the skew-symmetric part of the
elements with drilling rotation when using (2 × 2) reduced displacement gradient has no unique relationship with the
integration, some modified reduced numerical integration rotations of the adjacent element sides. This kind of free-
schemes have been applied to membrane elements wit rota- dom can therefore not be used in connection with the usual
tional DOF successfully. A modified eight-point reduced displacement formulations which requires ­C0 interelement
quadrature was used in [51, 55] for four-nodded quadrilateral continuity for the membrane action”.
elements with drilling DOF. In fact, while the total number Meanwhile, the free formulation lacked a variational
of DOFs is twelve with four rigid body modes, a 2 × 2 inte- basis, therefore, an enriched variant called the “Extended
gration scheme can provide six constraints. As we need two Free Formulation” (EFF) was used later in [79] to get a
more constraints to avoid rank deficiency, only one addi- rank-sufficient non-conforming triangular element. The
tional integration point is required. Hence fore, an effective EFF allows for retaining higher-order stress fields, and more
modified five-point quadrature has been applied successfully internal displacement modes than nodal displacements.
by [65, 67, 68, 75, 76]. This formulation is achieved by recasting the FF within the
framework of a mixed-hybrid functional containing free
parameters. Such principles are called parameterized vari-
6 Incorporating the True Drilling Rotation ational principles. By setting the free adjustable parameters
to specific numerical values, classical variational principles
Because of the presence of the rotational DOF, these mem- such as Total Potential Energy (TPE), Hellinger–Reissner
brane elements are particularly convenient as membrane (HR) and Hu–Washizu (HW) can be produced.
component in flat shell elements. Though, having a con- A variant that combines the FF and the ANS called
sistent drilling rotation as nodal DOF will allow membrane “Assumed Natural Deviatoric Strain” (ANDES), in which,
and shell finite elements to compatibly connect with other the higher-order strains are derived through assumed natural
kinds of elements with rotational DOFs. However, since the strains interpolation alike those used in [80] to develop a
corner rotation DOF introduced by Allman [26] and Car- triangular element with drilling DOF. In order to get a rank
penter et al. [27] is not the true drilling rotation, it is not a sufficient element, an additional higher-order “torsional”
straightforward matter to fulfil consistency at the nodal lines mode is incorporated. Felippa [81] presented the formula-
of shell elements. tion of triangular membrane elements with drilling DOF,
In the aim to form shell elements with a compatible set of using the earlier work on the EFF and ANDES by [79, 80,
DOFs with other types of structural elements, the investiga- 82]. This formulation, however, induces stiffness matrices
tion of membrane elements with the true drilling rotation with free parameters that need to be optimised for better
DOF has been motivated. In 1985 Bergan and Felippa [28] accuracy. This could imply some material-dependent values,
introduced the in-plane rotational DOF in the constant strain which can be problematic for material nonlinear problems.
triangle using the Free Formulation of Bergan and Nygård Sabir [19], using a class of the free formulation called
[13]. The appellation “free formulation” refers to “freedom the “Strain-Based Approach” (SBA), derived rectangular
from conformity requirements”. The FF is based on non- and triangular non-conforming elements with the rota-
conforming internal displacement assumptions, the princi- tional quantity provided by continuum mechanics referred
ple of virtual work and the so-called “Individual Element to as “true drilling rotation”. Recently [83–87] used the
test” (IE-test). The IE-test by Bergan and Hanssen [29] gives same method in their works. In this formulation, the strain
explicit mathematical constraint equations which correspond field within the element is independently formulated prior
to the patch test imposed on a single element. The proposed to the displacement field. First, an assumed strain field is

13
3056 D. Boutagouga

polynomially interpolated. Then, by satisfying the compat- is imposed, the accuracy of the rotational DOFs becomes
ibility and rigid body conditions, the interpolation constants good, while the accuracy of the displacement field and con-
are calculated. Finally, the displacement and rotation fields vergence of the finite element radically fade. In fact, it is the
are obtained over integrating the assumed strain field. Note independent field who is enforced to equals the vertex rota-
that, numerical results show that only rectangular elements tion quantity, which is, a discrete quantity defined only on
provide good results. Generally, the strain interpolation corned nodes. So, in order to preserve the accuracy of dis-
in these elements is tuned to fit some selected benchmark placements, reduced integration scheme is usually adopted
problems. Hence fore, these elements may not perform with the expense of losing accuracy of the rotational field.
quite well over the whole range of engineering problems. Hence fore, the purpose of achieving equivalence between
Rezaiee-Pajand and co-workers [88, 89] presented some effi- the vertex rotation and the true drilling rotation is not
cient strain-based quadrilateral and triangular elements by attained. Nevertheless, vertex rotation DOFs are connected
interpolating the strain field in the form of the Taylor series to the average element rotation through the penalty term or
expansion. The unknown parameters of interpolation are the Lagrangian multiplier. This handling relates the average
defined by satisfying compatibility and equilibrium equa- nodal rotation to the element’s rigid rotation, which allows
tions and the rigid body modes. This choice implies some the locking of the spurious zero-energy mode corresponding
material-dependent parameters, which can be problematic to the equal rotation configuration. The constraint method
for material nonlinear problems. is therefore equivalent to the spurious mode control method
An alternative approach, which relies on a mixed penal- in [50]. However, elements obtained via this mixed-method
ized variational formulation initially presented by Reissner can avoid excessive rotation field exhibited by elements with
[90] and later modified by Hughes and co-workers [91, 92] rotational DOF. For instance, Boutagouga [65] successfully
has been extensively adopted. This formulation introduces used the penalty method and an independent rotational field
an independent rotational field then, in this mixed variational to overcome the excessive rotation field problem.
principle, the definition of true rotation as the skew-symmet- Another approach based on the micropolar elasticity is
ric part of the displacement gradients is relaxed and later used in [72, 73] to avoid the use of the linked interpolation.
enforced in the variational statement as constraint through Yeh and Chen [72] derived a degenerated shell element with
the Lagrangian multiplier. Ibrahimbegovic et al. [93] pro- drilling DOF using Cosserat micropolar elasticity with no
posed a class of membrane elements with drilling rotational spurious mode. Kugler et al. [73] derived a Cosserat-type
DOF based on the modified variational functional of Hughes functional employing an independent rotational field simi-
and Brezzi. They used an independent interpolation for the lar to that obtained by Hughes and Brezzi, for which, the
in-plane rotation and Allman type interpolation for the in- micropolar theory of elasticity is used as a starting point.
plane displacement. This formulation provided Allman-like In the Cosserat micropolar elasticity theory, an independ-
elements that can pass the one-element patch test. Then, ent rotation field is involved in the strain tensor and both
several quadrilateral elements are similarly developed [67, the stress and strain tensors are assumed to be unsymmetric
94–98]. This formulation was also extended to the formu- owing to the body moment. In this continuum theory, rota-
lation of triangular elements by [46, 99]. On the basis of tions of a material particle are considered as independent
this modified functional, several quadrilateral elements with physical degrees of freedom, and hence, no further handling
improved accuracy are developed using the incompatible of the relation between displacement and rotations is needed.
modes method by Ibrahimbegovic and co-workers [64, 66, Moreover, spurious zero-energy mode due to equal rotations
100, 101]. configuration can be obviously circumvented.
In these elements, the linked interpolation is employed as Recently, the concern of incorporating true drilling rota-
basic interpolation of the displacement and rotation fields, tional DOF instead of the vertex rotation into compatible
therefore, the rotational field is not completely independent. displacement-based finite elements has successfully treated
In fact, an independent rotational field is a priory adopted; by Boutagouga [102].
then, the relation between the independent rotational field
and the displacement field is established through the Lagran-
gian multiplier or the penalty function method in the aim of 7 Improvements and Refinements
correcting the in-plane vertex rotation to close true drilling
rotation. The penalty term in the variational functional will Due to the lack of an explicit methodology of incorporating
modify rotational DOFs to close the true rotational field over the true nodal drilling rotation instead of vertex rotation into
the element only in integration sense. Hence, full numerical the linked interpolation of Eq. 1, most of membrane ele-
integration is required to achieve the equivalence between ments with in-plane rotational DOF have been formulated
the independent rotational field and vertex rotations. How- using the vertex rotational DOF. Even though they don’t
ever, when strong enforcement of this equality constraint comprise the true drilling rotation, elements with vertex

13
A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3057

rotation have been extensively formulated to enhance the It is noticed that the performance of incompatible modes
element overall behaviour, mainly the convergences rate. elements is considerably destroyed for an irregular mesh. A
Different techniques to mitigate previously mentioned short- more efficient choice is the “enhanced strain method” alter-
comings of the classical displacement formulation especially natively called the “enhanced assumed strain method”. The
locking phenomenon, spurious zero-energy modes and ES method offers great flexibility in designing efficient finite
patch test, have been proposed in the literature. An effective elements. ES elements are formulated from the three-field
approach to address these shortcomings is the development Hu–Washizu functional. In the ES method, the strain field
of mixed finite elements via the application of modified vari- is enhanced by appending an incompatible strain field to the
ational principles. strain corresponding to the compatible displacement. With
If the rotational DOF is meant to improve membrane an appropriately chosen independent strain field, elements
elements accuracy, then certainly, it is better to use the may be free from shear locking and less sensitive to volu-
enhanced strain (ES) formulation, alternatively called the metric locking and mesh distortion. Using this approach,
“Enhanced assumed strain” (EAS) formulation. This formu- Piltner and Taylor [108] proposed three sets of enhanced
lation has proven to be an effective method to alleviate all strain to improve Allman’s triangular element with four
kinds of locking problems. Historically, before the EAS for- enhanced strain parameters in each case. The resulting ele-
mulation, there was the “Incompatible Modes” (IM) method ments showed improved accuracy and good performances
also called “Non-Conforming Modes” (NCM) method, for nearly incompressible problems. Pimpinelli [109] com-
which is considered as a particular approximation of the prised an enhanced rotation field in addition to the enhanced
EAS method. In this formulation, incompatible ‘node-less’ strain field in a quadrilateral membrane element with drilling
deformation modes are added to an element to eliminate the DOFs. Wisniewski and Turska [110] presented the formula-
so-called parasitic shear stresses, which greatly improves the tion of a quadrilateral membrane element via the “Enhanced
in-plane bending behaviour. Non-conforming elements are Assumed Displacement Gradient” (EADG) method. The ele-
usually developed in the framework of the minimum poten- ment is constructed using Allman shape functions and by
tial energy principle. The additional node-less DOFs need to considering additional enhancing modes added to the defor-
be eliminated using a static-condensation process. A class of mation gradient. Boutagouga and co-workers [65, 111] pro-
incompatible quadrilateral elements with improved conver- posed enhanced triangular and quadrilateral elements using
gence are formulated within the context of the Hughes and four and five incompatible displacements respectively. In
Brezzi modified variational principle by several authors [64, these elements, the incompatible strain field is constructed
66, 68, 101, 103]. In these elements, different sets of hierar- by considering the tangential components of mid-side
chical and bubble functions are used to enrich the displace- displacements as internal DOFs. The presented elements
ment field. Consequently, the accuracy of these elements exhibit good convergence rate even for distorted mesh and
is considerably improved especially in bending situations. can alleviate volumetric locking for nearly incompressible
Iura and Atluri [104] presented a quadrilateral element materials.
by employing separate interpolation of displacement and While the use of incompatible modes or enhanced strain
rotation fields instead of the Allman-type shape functions. improves the element behaviour significantly, the result-
The relation between displacement and drilling DOFs is ing elements do not always pass the patch test. In order to
set up through the penalty function term. They introduced pass the patch test, incompatible strains usually set to be
incompatible functions to improve numerical accuracy of orthogonal to constant strain modes similarly to the method
the proposed element, however, their element shows poor presented in Sect. 5.3. However, this is not sufficient to
behaviour in a distorted mesh. Chen and Li [105] presented eliminate the spurious mode due to equal nodal rotations.
a quadrilateral element based on Allman’s conforming inter- To circumvent this defect several modified non-conforming
polation and non-conforming displacement with four inter- methods have been proposed. An efficient method that takes
nal displacements DOFs. a way between conforming and non-conforming elements is
Kouhia [106] proposed membrane elements with non- the “Generalised Conforming Method” (GCM). This method
conforming interpolation for the drilling rotation. In this is based on a modified potential energy functional. It is non-
interpolation, translational displacements are located at conforming in coarse meshes but tends to be conforming
vertex nodes while rotations appear at the mid-side nodes. in the limiting case of refined meshes, so the shortcomings
Following the concept from [106], a quadrilateral ele- of conforming elements are overcome and the weakness
ment is presented in [107] using a conforming interpola- that the non-conforming elements may not be convergent is
tion for displacement, and an independent rotational field eliminated. Long and Xu [112] presented two generalized
that is enhanced through the application of an incompatible conforming triangular membrane elements with rigid vertex
interpolation. rotations using the approach of GCM. The adopted concept
of vertex rigid rotations is different from that defined by

13
3058 D. Boutagouga

Allman and, is also different from the continuum mechan- Allman’s element, presented an assumed-stress hybrid ele-
ics definition of drilling rotation. In [113] they suggested a ment with five stress modes while the boundary displace-
new definition of vertex rigid rotation and developed cor- ments are interpolated based on Allman’s displacement field.
responding two new generalized conforming quadrilateral In order to preserve geometric invariance, the element is
membrane elements. In these elements, the in-plane dis- constructed starting from three sub-elements and the three
placements are decomposed into regular low-order compo- DOFs at the centroid node are removed by static condensa-
nents, higher-order incomplete polynomials components due tion. Allman [47] derived a compatible quadrilateral element
to the nodal in-plane rotations, and a bubble displacement by combining four fields of Allman’s triangular element in
is introduced to improve the performance. These elements a special formulation which automatically suppresses the
have further refined in [114, 115]. extra, unwanted, zero-energy mode. The stresses inside are
A method called the “Direct Modification Method” evaluated through minimizing the complementary energy
(DMM) is suggested by Choi et al. [116]. This method is a of an equilibrium stress components obtained from an Airy
modification of the aforementioned strain modes orthogo- stress function. Aminpour [120] presented a four nodes ele-
nality technique. This method does not require the volume ment with nine stress parameters expanded in Cartesian
integration for calculation of correction constants. Instead, coordinates. The displacement on the element boundary is
by the analytical calculation of correction constants, the based on the Allman type interpolation.
derivatives of various types of non-conforming mode are Later, in order to alleviate the condition in which equilib-
directly corrected to pass the patch test. Using the DMM, rium equations must be satisfied a priori, hybrid elements
they proposed four quadrilateral elements using independent are formulated on the basis of generalized variational prin-
interpolation for displacement and rotation fields, and with ciples such as the Hellinger–Reissner and the Hu–Washizu
different sets of non-conforming modes [117]. The DMM principles. In these elements, the assumed stress hybrid
is incorporated in the formulation to let the element pass elements, interpolate the stress field inside the element and
the patch test. A 5-node quadrilateral non-conforming mem- the displacement on the element’s boundary independently
brane element with drilling DOF is proposed using the direct while, the assumed strain hybrid elements, use the inside
modification method in [118]. strain and the displacement on the boundary as independent
In a formulation called “Quasi-Conforming Technique” variables. Moreover, the equilibrium equations are satis-
(QCT), based on the assumed strain method, strains are fied in a variational sense so the stress/strain field can be
assumed in the element domain, while the displacements expanded in natural co-ordinate system, which makes these
are defined using string functions. Because the interele- elements less sensitive to mesh distortion: Yunus [121] and
ment conformity is done during the enforcement of the Yunus et al. [70] presented assumed stress hybrid triangu-
strain approximation, the element formulation is named lar and quadrilateral elements from the Hellinger–Reissner
“Quasi-Conforming Technique”. Based on this formulation variational principle. The triangular element was developed
Kim et al. [119] presented a Quasi-conforming four-node using five-stress parameters in convected natural space,
stress-resultant flat shell elements. The rotational DOF of while the quadrilateral element was developed using a
the membrane element is included using the QCT. In this nine-parameter complete linear stress field in natural space.
element, an independent strain field is adopted and Allman Aminpour [122] presented a four nodes element similar to
type interpolation of the displacement along the side of the that in [120] yet using Hellinger–Reissner principle, which
membrane element is used as string functions. allows the stress resultant field to be expressed in the nat-
An alternative efficient approach to eliminate locking ural-co-ordinate system. Sze et al. [71] proposed a mixed
and develop high-performance finite elements is the mixed/ quadrilateral element with drilling DOF based on Allman’s
hybrid elements method, in which, several field variables scheme for the displacement interpolation while adopting
are used and approximated as independent variables. This orthogonal constant and higher-order stress modes for stress
class of elements generally shows good behaviour in terms interpolation. Sze and Ghali [61] introduced a quadrilateral
of displacements and stresses convergence. Earlier hybrid hybrid stress element based on Hughes and Brezzi’s func-
stress elements were based on the principle of minimum tional with either seven or eight assumed stress modes. The
complementary energy. Assumed stress field inside the ele- seven stress modes element exhibits a spurious zero-energy
ment is approximated by polynomials, while a finite element mode. The eight stress modes give a strictly stable element
approximation is used to express the boundary displacement. despite is one less mode than that prescribed in Eq. 11. This
The stress field in this formulation is formulated in Carte- element can be considered as one of the first ranks sufficient
sian coordinates and it must satisfy equilibrium equations a hybrid stress elements with drilling DOF. To & Liu [123]
priori, which causes difficulty and a lack of invariance with presented three variations of hybrid strain triangular ele-
respect to the co-coordinate system. Cook [48] In order to ments that are built on the basis of the Hellinger–Reissner
improve performance and avoid undesirable mechanisms of strain variational principle. The work focused on linking the

13
A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3059

“skew-symmetric” component of the displacement gradi- Trefftz quadrilateral and triangular plane elements by using
ent to the displacement field built on the basis of Allman’s Allman type displacement field by Choo et al. [128] and
interpolation. Choi et al. [129].
In the above-mentioned hybrid assumed (symmetric) Cen et al. [130] derived a 4-node “Hybrid Stress-Func-
stress finite elements, the rotation field does not appear in tion” (HS-F) membrane element with drilling degree of free-
the expression of the variational principle but is introduced dom. In this technique, in order to improve hybrid stress
through using Allman type shape functions for the inde- elements that are formulated on the basis of the minimum
pendent boundary displacement of the finite element. Caz- complementary energy principle, instead of utilizing a
zani and Atluri [124] presented a family of new four-nodded hypothetical solution for stress field, the trial functions for
membrane elements with drilling DOF using unsymmetric stresses are derived from the Airy stress function analytical
assumed stresses. They presented a Hellinger–Reissner type solutions that will satisfy the compatibility equations. They
variational principle to develop membrane elements with used the first seven fundamental Airy stress function solu-
drilling DOF. The independent variables in this family are tions, and Allman functions for the displacements along the
the unsymmetric stress and the drilling DOFs, as well as the element boundaries. The element is less sensitive to severe
traditional displacement DOFs. In [125], the stress resultants mesh distortions even when the element becomes a concave
expressed in natural coordinates used by [122] are trans- quadrangle or degenerates into a triangle. Madeo et al. [74]
formed to Cartesian coordinates by the contravariant ten- presented a mixed isostatic quadrilateral element based on
sor transformation laws. Cannarozzi and Cannarozzi [126] a mixed Hellinger–Reissner functional. Independent inter-
presented quadrilateral elements based on the minimum polations for displacement and stress are used in order to
complementary energy principle with a stress field interpo- achieve improved stress recovery and reduced kinematical
lation based on Airy stress functions. A new interpolation locking. In order to avoid rank deficiency, the Allman type
scheme for boundary displacement that is different from that interpolation of the displacement field is enriched by an
of Allman’s interpolation is proposed. The elements have no incompatible cubic mode. This incompatible displacement
zero-energy modes owing to the new interpolation scheme. is constructed depending on the average nodal rotations of
Mixed/Hybrid elements can be also formulated from the element. A complete second order polynomial with nine
the Hu–Washizu principle with displacement, stress and/or stress parameters is used for internal stress interpolation by
strain being interpolated independently from one another. enforcing a sufficient number of isostatic equilibrium con-
For instance, Geyer and Groenwold [98] formulated two ditions. The compliance and compatibility equations were
families of membrane finite elements with drilling DOF solved using a boundary integration method. The proposed
by an assumed stress hybrid technique using a mixed element exhibits less sensitivity to mesh distortion and no
Hu–Washizu like principle, and the framework presented spurious modes. Rezaiee-Pajand and Karkon [131] derived a
by Hughes and Brezzi. Both proposed families are rank suf- quadrilateral hybrid stress element with drilling DOF based
ficient and hence pass the patch test. Groenwold et al. [69] on Hellinger-Reisner principle and analytical solutions. The
presented hybrid stress elements based on the direct enforce- internal stress field is derived from the analytical solution
ment of traction free condition over manipulating the ele- of the bi-harmonic compatibility equation. Rezaiee-Pajand
ment assumed stress field. and Yaghoobi [132] presented a quadrilateral hybrid ele-
Long et al. [127] investigated the effect of the penalty ment based on a hybrid strain functional with independent
parameters in elements with drilling DOF that are based interpolation of boundary displacement and internal strain
on penalized constraints relates the in-plane translations to fields. Allman’s interpolation is used for the independent
drilling rotations, or enforcement of stress equilibrium in boundary displacement.
assumed stress elements with drilling rotations. Zouari et al. [133] presented a conforming and non-
Several new methodologies are still being proposed in conforming quadrilateral elements based on a plane adap-
the aim to further improve finite elements. In the last two tation of the “Space Fiber Rotation” (SFR) concept. This
decades, a variety of interesting methods have been applied method considers the out of plane virtual rotation of a nodal
to membrane elements with drilling rotation to develop fiber within the element in order to enrich its displacement
high-performance models; for instance, in another type of approximation. The kinematic of the non-conforming ele-
hybrid methods called “Hybrid Trefftz Formulation” (HTF), ment is enriched via two incompatible displacement modes.
the inner displacement field is used instead of the stress/ It is then, less sensitive to mesh distortion and volumetric
strain field. In this method, the internal displacement field locking then the conforming element. Bucher [134] pre-
is designed in such a way that the governing differential sented a new kinematic approach to derive a triangular ele-
equation can be satisfied, whereas the boundary conditions ment with drilling rotation. In this approach, nodal rotations
and inter-element continuity are then enforced in an integral are introduced as relative rotations superimposed on the
sense. The drilling rotational DOF was introduced to hybrid average element rotation due to nodal displacements.

13
3060 D. Boutagouga

The state of the art reveals that quadrilateral finite ele- defined in skew coordinates with natural basis. The drill-
ments are the most popular models. However, it is well- ing rotational DOF was included in the formulation through
know that quadrilateral finite elements suffer from the the drilling rotation constraint equation and the Lagrange
problem of mesh distortion sensitivity. Hence fore, once multiplier method. The element exhibits good numerical
the element shape is distorted, its numerical accuracy may accuracy even with severely distorted mesh. Chang et al.
deteriorate dramatically. Several methods have been investi- [76] proposed a new mixed variational formulation using a
gated in order to mitigate mesh distortion sensitivity. Among modified Hu–Washizu principle in which, the generalized
the successful methods applied to membrane elements with conforming approach is extended so that the presented finite
drilling rotation DOF is the “Quadrilateral Area Coordi- element combines advantages of both mixed and generalized
nate” method (QAC). Through this formulation, the coordi- conforming formulations. The stress and strain fields inter-
nates transformation between the Area Coordinates and the polations are obtained from a complete second-order expan-
Cartesian Coordinates is always linear even with distorted sion resulting in a high-performing four-node membrane ele-
mesh. Therefore, these elements exhibit better performance ment with drilling DOF. Daszkiewicz et al. [139] proposed
and less sensitivity to mesh distortion as shown in [114]. mixed 4-node shell elements with drilling rotation based
A method that consists of using modified shape functions on the three-field Hu–Washizu principal with unsymmetric
is also applied. In this method, the eight-nodes serendip- strains and stress fields. The interpolation of unsymmetric
ity shape functions are modified to be able to represent any strains and stress resultant fields, which are considered as
quadratic Cartesian polynomials. Boutagouga [65] Proposed independent, is defined in the natural and skew coordinates.
an Enhanced Strain quadrilateral element with Allman type Boutagouga [102] presented a formulation of displace-
interpolation based on the modified shape functions by ment-based membrane elements with true drilling rota-
[135]. The resulting element exhibits good numerical accu- tional DOF. He proposed a compatible triangular element
racy and excellent insensitivity to severe mesh distortions. with the true drilling rotational DOF provided by continuum
Another effective method is the unsymmetric FEM which mechanics. The element incorporates the rotational “skew-
belongs to the family of Petrov–Galerkin variational for- symmetric” component of the displacement gradient into
mulations. It is a very promising methodology to develop the displacement field expression starting from the LST’s
less distortion sensitive finite elements. This method uses complete quadratic polynomial interpolation without any
different interpolations to, respectively, determine the test presumed geometric transformations. A new rapport link-
functions and trial functions. Unsymmetric finite elements ing the mid-side normal displacement to corner node rota-
formulation is based on the virtual work principle. Shang & tions, and an explicit expression of the rotational field are
Ouyang [136] proposed a quadrilateral unsymmetric mem- obtained. The presented results reveal the consistency of the
brane element with drilling rotation DOF. The test func- presented formulation with the rotational “skew-symmetric”
tions are derived from an Iso-parametric-based Allman- component provided by continuum mechanics.
type displacement field with drilling degrees of freedom.
Meanwhile, a stress field derived from Airy stress function
analytical solutions is adopted as the element’s trial function. 8 Membrane Elements with Mid‑side Nodes
They used the stress field adopted in the HS-F element in
[130] which is expressed in global Cartesian coordinates. Motivated by the demand of developing high-performance
The element exhibits good numerical accuracies even for membrane finite elements accurate even with coarse and
nearly incompressible materials and excellent insensitivity distorted meshes, higher-order membrane elements with
to severe mesh distortions. An unsymmetric triangular ele- drilling DOF and mid-side nodes are investigated. This
ment with drilling DOF is development on the same basis conception aims to merge the advantages of higher-order
in [137]. The unsymmetric quadrilateral element is later elements with those of the drilling rotational DOF. Most of
extended for the modified couple stress theory [138] in order these elements are natural evolution of previous triangular
to take into account the size effect of materials. and quadrilateral elements with corner nodes. For instance,
The Hu–Washizu principle with independent displace- but not all: A nine-node quadrilateral element with spurious
ment, stress and strain interpolations is used by [62, 76, 139] zero-energy modes stabilizing technique based on a penalty
to develop some improved elements with good accuracy even stabilisation matrix by non-conforming modes is presented
with distorted meshes. Wisniewski and Turska [62] proposed in [140]. An 8-nodes mixed element with drilling DOF along
a Four-node mixed Hu–Washizu element with drilling DOF with the presented 4-nodes element formulated using Airy
using seven stress parameters interpolation, nine strain functions based interpolation of the stress field is presented
parameters interpolation and a two-parameter enhanced in [126]. Zhang and Kuang [141] developed an eight-nodes
assumed displacement gradient In this mixed Hu–Washizu quadrilateral element with drilling DOF using compatible
element, the assumed stress and strains interpolations are displacement interpolation. To introduce drilling degrees to

13
A Review on Membrane Finite Elements with Drilling Degree of Freedom 3061

mid-nodes of the element, a set of new shape functions is Acknowledgements This article was supported by: La Direction Géné-
constructed and the element stiffness matrix is derived fol- rale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique
(DGRSDT).
lowing the displacement-based procedure using the mini-
mum potential energy principle. Madeo et al. [142] proposed
Compliance with Ethical Standards
a mixed isostatic quadrilateral element with 16 DOF. This
element is a generalization of the four-nodes element pre- Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
sented in [74]. In this element, tangential DOFs only are interest.
assigned to the mid-side nodes. Rezaiee-Pajand et al. [143]
used the strain-based formulation to derive a seven-nodes
triangular element with eleven degrees of freedom. The ele- References
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improve these finite elements’ accuracy.

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