The discrete strain gap method and membrane locking

The discrete shear gap (DSG) method, initially proposed for the elimination of transverse shear locking in plate and shell finite elements, is extended to a more general concept, rephrasing ‘DSG’ as ‘discrete strain gap’. We focus on the application of the method to the problem of membrane locking in beam and shell finite elements in the present paper. It turns out that a straightforward extension of the original DSG method is suitable to avoid membrane locking for both triangles and quadrilaterals. Moreover, there are strong indications that the presented idea includes the potential for a general formulation of locking-free structural finite elements, equally well suited for beams, plates, shells and solids.