Faces of Shell Elements

Shell Element Internal Forces

The six faces of a shell element are defined as the positive 1 face, negative 1 face,
positive 2 face, negative 2 face, positive 3 face and negative 3 face as shown in the
figure below. In this definition, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 correspond to the local axes
of the shell element. The positive 1 face of the element is the face that is
perpendicular to the 1-axis of the element whose outward normal (pointing away
from the element) is in the positive 1-axis direction. The negative 1 face of the
element is a face that is perpendicular to the 1-axis of the element whose outward
normal (pointing away from the element) is in the negative 1-axis direction. The
other faces have similar definitions

Note that the positive 3 face is sometimes called the top of the shell element in
ETABS, particularly in the output, and the negative 3 face is called the bottom of
the shell element. The shell element internal forces, like stresses, act throughout
the element. They are present at every point on the mid surface of the shell
element. ETABS reports values for the shell internal forces at the element nodes. It
is important to note that the internal forces are reported as forces and moments per
unit of in-plane length. The basic shell element forces and moments are identified
as F11, F22, F12, M11, M22, M12, V13 and V23. You might expect that there
would also be an F21and M21, but F21is always equal toF12and M21is always
equal to M12, so it is not actually necessary to report F21and M21.The figure
below shows internal F11forces acting on the mid surface of a shell element. In the
figure, the force distribution labeled (a) represents an actual F11force distribution.
The force distribution labeled (b) shows how ETABS calculates only the internal
forces at the corner points of the shell element. Note that we could calculate these
stresses at any location on the shell element. We simply choose to calculate them
only at the corner points because that is a convenient location and it keeps the
amount of output to a reasonable volume.