A new strain based brick element for plate bending

This paper presents the development of a new three-dimensional brick finite element by the use of the strain based approach for the linear analysis of plate bending. The developed element has the three essential external degrees of freedom (U, V and W) at each of the eight corner nodes as well as at the centroidal node. The displacement field of the developed element is based on assumed functions for the various strains satisfying the compatibility equations and the static condensation technique is used for the internal node. The performance of this element is evaluated on several problems related to thick and thin plate bending in linear analysis. The obtained results show the good performances and accuracy of the present element.