Advances in the formulation of the rotation-free basic shell triangle

A family of rotation-free three node triangular shell elements is presented. The simplest element of the family is based on an assumed constant curvature field expressed in terms of the nodal deflections of a patch of four elements and a constant membrane field computed from the standard linear interpolation of the displacements within each triangle. An enhanced version of the element is obtained by using a quadratic interpolation of the geometry in terms of the six patch nodes. This allows to compute an assumed linear membrane strain field which improves the in-plane behaviour of the original element. A simple and economic version of the element using a single integration point is presented. The efficiency of the different rotation-free shell triangles is demonstrated in many examples of application including linear and non-linear analysis of shells under static and dynamic loads, the inflation and de-inflation of membranes and a sheet stamping problem.