A novel one-dimensional two-node shear-flexible layered composite beam element

A new simple one-dimensional two-node layered beam element with only 2 degrees of freedom per node is developed for finite element analyses of isotropic and composite beams in this paper. Timoshenko's composite beam functions are modified and employed to represent the displacement functions of the element, thus providing a unified formulation for slender-to-moderately deep beam analyses, and the notorious shear-locking problem is avoided without employment of remedy schemes. The proposed beam element is demonstrated to be convergent, accurate and computationally efficient for analysis of isotropic and composite beams.