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KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering (2012) 16(7):1230-1242 Structural Engineering
DOI 10.1007/s12205-012-1515-7
www.springer.com/12205

A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for

Three Dimensional Solid Structures
Hung Nguyen-Xuan*, Hiep Vinh Nguyen**, Stephane Bordas***,
Timon Rabczuk****, and Marc Duflot*****
Received March 17, 2011/Accepted February 13, 2012

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Abstract

This paper extends further the strain smoothing technique in finite elements to 8-noded hexahedral elements (CS-FEM-H8). The
idea behind the present method is similar to the cell-based smoothed 4-noded quadrilateral finite elements (CS-FEM-Q4). In CS-
FEM, the smoothing domains are created based on elements, and each element can be further subdivided into 1 or several smoothing
cells. It is observed that: 1) The CS-FEM using a single smoothing cell can produce higher stress accuracy, but insufficient rank and
poor displacement accuracy; 2) The CS-FEM using several smoothing cells has proper rank, good displacement accuracy, but lower
stress accuracy, especially for nearly incompressible and bending dominant problems. We therefore propose 1) an extension of strain
smoothing to 8-noded hexahedral elements and 2) an alternative CS-FEM form, which associates the single smoothing cell issue with
multi-smoothing cell one via a stabilization technique. Several numerical examples are provided to show the reliability and accuracy
of the present formulation.
Keywords: 3D elasticity, cell-based smoothed finite element (CS-FEM), convergence, stabilization
···································································································································································································································

1. Introduction gonal elements (nS-FEM) (Dai et al., 2007a), dynamic analysis

In 2006, Liu et al. (2007a) proposed an application of strain
smoothing to the finite element method, and called the resulting
technique a cell/element-based smoothed finite element method
(SFEM or CS-FEM) for 2D solid problems. Theoretical devel-
opments, accuracy, convergence and stability results were then
presented in (Liu et al., 2007b; Nguyen-Xuan et al., 2008a).
The idea is to use a strain measure calculated as the spatial
average of the standard (symmetric gradient of the displacements)
compatible strain field. Different numbers of smoothing cells
(nc) per element confer the method with different properties. To
illustrate the method, Fig. 1 shows a possible state of stress within
smoothing cells in a 4-noded quadrilateral element. Note that the
stresses are discontinuous across the cell walls, but the displace-
ment remains continuous because the shape functions of the
underlying finite element used to define the displacement field in
the element are continuous.
The CS-FEM has then been extended to general n-sided poly-
(Dai and Liu, 2007b), volumetric locking (Nguyen et al. 2007;
Nguyen-Xuan et al. 2009a), plate and shell analysis (Nguyen-Xuan
et al., 2008b; Nguyen-Thanh et al., 2008) and coupled to partition
of unity enrichment (Bordas et al., 2010). The latter paper also
provides a review of strain smoothing in FEM. The extension of
this smoothing technique to higher order elements have also been
recently presented in Bordas et al. (2011).
For completeness, we recall the most salient features of the
CS-FEM that can be summarized as follows:
• Integration can be performed on the boundary of the smoothing
cells, which simplifies the formulation of polygonal elements.
No isoparametric mapping is necessary, thus, highly distorted
meshes are acceptable and the computational cost for
establishing the stiffness matrix is slightly reduced (5% for four
subcells to 20% for one subcell, in our experience).
• Because the divergence theorem is used to write the strain field,
the derivatives of the shape functions are not needed to
compute the stiffness matrix.

*Lecturer, Dept. of Mechanics, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Science, Vietnam National University - HCM, Hochiminh
700000; Vietnam and Division of Computational Mechanics, Ton Duc Thang University, Hochiminh 700000, Vietnam (Corresponding Author, E-mail:
nxhung@hcmus.edu.vn)
**Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport, Hochiminh 700000, Vietnam (E-mail: hiepnguyenvinh@
gmail.com)
***Professor, School of Engineering, Institute of Theoretical, Applied and Computational Mechanics, Cardiff University, Wales, UK (E-mail: bordasS@
cardiff.ac.uk)
****Professor, Institute of Structural Mechanics, Bauhaus-University Weimar, 99423 Weimar, Germany (E-mail: timon.rabczuk@uni-weimar.de)
*****Senior Researcher, CENAERO, Rue des Frres Wright 29, 6041 Gosselies, Belgium (E-mail: marc.duflot@cenaero.be)

− 1230 −
 A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Three Dimensional Solid Structures
Fig. 1. Stress Field in a Smoothed Finite Element with 4 Smooth-
ing Cells (The stress is constant over each smoothing cell,
but discontinuous across cells. On the contrary, the dis-
placement field is continuous within the element.)
• In Liu et al. (2007b), it is shown that the CS-FEM solution for
nc∈[, +∞) is bounded by the FEM solution with reduced in-
tegration (nc = 1) and the standard displacement FEM solution
(nc → +∞). In addition, the authors show that the CS-FEM
with one subcell is equivalent to a quasi-equilibrium finite ele-
ment method.
• Consequences of the previous point are: increased stress accu-
racy for low numbers of sub-cells (increased displacement
accuracy for high numbers of subcells), a convergence rate of
2.0 in the energy norm for the one subcell method which is also
plagued with zero energy modes due to rank deficiency. In
general, for 2D (3D) bi(tri)linear elements, these zero energy
modes appear when one or two subcells are used, but recedes
for 3 or more subcells.
• If the shape functions of the underlying finite element are linear,
Liu et al., (2007b) shows that CS-FEM is strictly equivalent to
FEM. Through another demonstration, this is confirmed by
Nguyen-Xuan et al. (2008a).
• The compliance of the resulting stiffness matrix increases with
the number of subcells, as do the stress error, total energy and
sensitivity to volumetric locking. On the contrary, the displace-
ment error decreases with an increasing number of subcells
(Liu et al., 2007b; Nguyen-Xuan et al., 2008a).
• In Nguyen-Xuan et al. (2008a), the L-shape problem and a
simple crack problem were solved for various numbers of
subcells. The numerical results show that for the linear elastic
crack problem, the convergence rate attained by the one subcell
four-noded quadrilateral (SC1Q4) reaches 1.0 in the energy
(H1) norm, as opposed to the theoretical rate of 1/2. The reason
for this behavior can be explained as follows: the one subcell is
equivalent to using average strains on the overall element and is
identical to the four-noded quadrilateral with one-point Gauss
integration. As proven by Zienkiewicz and Taylor (2000), super-
convergent sampling points coincide with the one-point inte-
gration scheme for the four noded quadrilateral (Q4). Hence the
SC1Q4 is superconvergent in the energy norm (stresses/dual
Vol. 16, No. 7 / November 2012
quantities are superconvergent). Kelly (1979,1980) showed that
the Q4 with reduced integration inherits properties of an equi-
librium element. The superconvergent property of equilibrium
elements was proved mathematically by Johnson and Mercier
(1979).
In addition, the strain smoothing technique has also been appli-
ed to the FEM settings to for-mulate various Smoothed Finite
Element Methods (SFEMs) models, including node-based SFEM
(NS-FEM) with the upper bound property in strain energy (Liu et
al., 2009a), and the edge-based SFEM (ES-FEM) (Liu et al.
2009b; Nguyen-Xuan et al., 2009c) and the face-based SFEM
(FS-FEM) (Nguyen-Thoi et al. 2009). Each of these smoothed
FEM methods has different characters and properties and
advantages, and has been used to produce desired solutions for
solid mechanics problems. However, the bandwidth of stiffness
matrix of NS-FEM, ES-FEM, and FS-FEM models (Liu et al.
2009b; Nguyen-Xuan et al.,2009c; Nguyen-Thoi et al. 2009) is
found to be larger than that of FEM while the band-width of
stiffness matrix of CS-FEM (Liu et al., 2007a) is the same as that
of FEM, and hence the computational cost of NS-FEM, ES-
FEM, FS-FEM is larger than that of FEM and CS-FEM. A general
framework for this strain smoothing technique in FEM was
proposed in Liu (2008). On the CS-FEM, an interesting question
does remain: Is it possible to guarantee higher stress accuracy
typical of single smoothing cell and maintain stability? An
improved formulation via a stabilization technique is presented
in this paper that permits this. The idea behind the proposed
method relies on the stabilized nodal integration technique that
was presented in Puso and Solberg (2006) for tetrahedral elements
and in Puso et al.(2008) for meshfree methods (Nguyen et al.
2008; Rabczuk et al., 2004a; Rabczuk and Belytschko, 2004b;
Bordas et al., 2008; Duot, 2006). However, further investigations
are required to better understand the role of the stabilization
parameter which is introduced.
This paper extends further the smoothed strain technique in
finite elements to 8-node hexahedral elements. The idea behind
the proposed method is similar to the two-dimensional cell-based
smoothed finite elements (CS-FEM). The present method is
studied for compressible and nearly incompressible problems
and a technique is proposed to stabilize the CS-FEM elements.
Several numerical examples are given to show the accuracy and
effec- tiveness of the present method.
2. Three-dimensional Smoothed Finite Elements
2.1 Calculation of the Stiffness Matrix
Consider an element Ωe contained in the discretized domain
Ωh. Ωe is partitioned into a number of smoothing cells noted ΩC.
Consider now an arbitrary smoothing nbcell, Ω C ⊂ Ω e ⊂ Ωh, as
illustrated in Fig. 4 with boundary SC= ∪ SCb , where SC is the bth
boundary surface of SC and nb is the total
b=1
number of surfaces
composing SC.
The following notations are used in the remainder of the
derivation:
− 1231 −
 Hung Nguyen-Xuan, Hiep Vinh Nguyen, Stephane Bordas, Timon Rabczuk, and Marc Duflot

• nc: number of smoothing cells in element Ωe (see Fig. 2 and Equation (5) is now computed on the boundary of ΩC and here
Fig. 3); we use one Gauss point to evaluate such an integration:
• VC= ∫Ω dΩ : volume of smoothing cell ΩC
C
⎛ Ni ( xbG )nx 0 0 ⎞
• D: matrix form of Hooke’s elasticity tensor; ⎜ ⎟
• Ni(x) is the shape function associated with node i evaluated at ⎜ 0 Ni ( xb )ny
G
0 ⎟
nb ⎜ ⎟
point x. 1 ⎜ 0 0 N ( x G
)n ⎟A
B̃Ci ( xC ) = ------ ∑ i b z
(6)
Given a point xC ∈Ωe, assume that xC ∈Ω C. Similarly to the 2D VC b = 1 ⎜ Ni ( xbG )ny Ni ( xbG )nx 0 ⎟ Cb
⎜ ⎟
SFEM formulation detailed elsewhere (see e.g., Liu et al. (2007)), ⎜ 0 Ni ( xbG )nz Ni ( xbG)ny ⎟
⎜ ⎟
the smoothed strain at point xC for an 8-node hexahedral element ⎝ Ni ( xbG )nz 0 Ni ( xbG)nx ⎠
(H8) writes:
where x Gb and ACb are the center point (Gauss point) and the area
⎛ ∂u ∂u h
h
1 1
h
ε̃ ( xC ) = --------- ∫Ω --------i + --------j ⎞ dΩ = --------- ∫S ( uih nj + ujh ni ) dS (1) of S Cb , respectively.
ij
2VC C ⎝ ∂xj ∂xi ⎠ 2VC C
Inserting Eqs. (6) and (4) into Eq. (3) yields a matrix expres-
The relationship between the strain field and the vector of sion for the smoothed stiffness matrix which can easily be imple-
generalized nodal displacements q is modied from the standard mented. For illustration, smoothing cells are now rectangular
FEM by replacing the FEM strain-displacement operator B by its parallelepipeds, see Fig. 21). Fig. 3 shows the integration points
smoothed counterpart, B̃ which will be dened below in detail. located on the faces of the integration cells.
The smoothed strain field writes:
h
2.2 Notations
ε̃ ( xC ) = B̃ ( xC )q (2) The eight-node hexahedral element (H8) with k Smoothing
The smoothed element stiffness matrix is the sum over the Cells is termed as SCkH8. Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b) illustrate a divi-
subcells of the contribution from each subcell, which is constant: sion with nc=1 and 8 corresponding to SC1H8 and SC8H8 elements.
nc nc
The stabilized elements are denoted by H8s for FEM, and
e T T SC1H8s for CS-FEM (see Section 2.4 for details).
K̃ = ∑ ∫Ω C
B̃C DB̃C dΩ = ∑ B̃C DB̃CVC (3)
C=1 C=1

The strain displacement matrix B̃C is constant over each ΩC 2.3 Eigenvalue Analysis, Rank
and is of the following form: By analyzing the eigenvalue of the elemental stiffness matrix,
we nd that H8 and SC8H8 contain six zero eigenvalues corres-
B̃C = [ B̃C1 B̃C2 B̃C3 … B̃C8 ] (4) ponding to the six rigid body modes. Hence these elements
where for all shape functions i∈{, ..., 8}, the 6×3 sub-matrix B̃Ci always have sufficient rank and no spurious zero-energy modes.
represents the contribution to the strain displacement matrix In contrast, SC1H8 exhibits twelve and six zero energy modes,
associated with shape function i and cell C and writes: respectively. Hence, it does not possess a proper rank. However,
for the examples tested below, it is found that the SC1H8 element
∀i ∈ { 1, 2, …, 8 } , ∀C ∈ { 1, 2, …, nc } gains higher stress accuracy and poorer displacements than the
nx 0 0
H8 and the SC8H8. This feature is very similar to those encoun-
0 ny 0
1 0 0 nz
T
B̃Ci = --- ∫SC n ( x )Ni ( x )d S = ∫SC ( x )Ni ( x )dS (5)
V ny nx 0
0 nz n y
nz 0 nx

Fig. 3. An Element is Subdivided into Eight Smoothing Cells and

the Indices of Vertices and Surfaces of Each Smoothing
Cess (The symbols ( ● ) and ( ○ ) stand for the nodes of ele-
ment and the vertices of the smoothing cell, respectively.
The figure at right hand side denotes the smoothing cell ΩC.)

1) The effect of the shape, size, and spatial arrangement of the smoothing
cell is not known, but it was shown in the 2D context that triangular
Fig. 2. Rectangular Parallelepipedic Smoothing Cells: An Element subcells and non-regular arrangements of quadrilateral subcells
is Subdivided into Eight Smoothing Cells yielded equally good results.

− 1232 − KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering

 A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Three Dimensional Solid Structures
tered in equilibrium approaches (Fraeijs de Veubeke, 1965) in
which the equilibrium equations are a priori verified.
2.4 A Stabilization Approach for CS-FEM
Various stabilization approaches on the eight node hexahedral
nite element have already been well-known in the literature
(Zienkiewicz and Taylor, 2000); Puso and Solberg, 2006);
Belytschko et al., 1984; Fredriksson and Ottosen, 2007; Gee et
al., 2009). The purpose of these techniques is to control the
hourglass modes in under-integrated hexahedral elements and
eliminate various locking mechanisms such as incompressibility,
shear and membrane locking, etc. In this section, we adopt a
stabilized approach reported in (Puso and Solberg, 2006; Puso et
al., 2009) for the smoothed FEM providing the basis for the
construction of hexahedral elements with sufficient rank and
higher displacement and stress accuracies.
As shown in numerical examples, using a single subcell yields
the SC1H8 model which yields accurate stresses and less accurate
displacements. Additionally, this element is insensitive to volu-
metric locking. This property is similar to the 2D CS-FEM case
using single smoothing cell (Nguyen et al., 2007; Nguyen-Xuan
et al., 2009b). However, as noted above, the SC1H8 element has
insufficient rank.
The SC8H8 model has sufficient rank and produces accuracy
in displacements, but it is still sensitive to volumetric locking and
locking due to bending.
The idea is to construct an element whose stiffness matrix is a
combination of good properties of the SC1H8 and the SC8H8.
The idea follows the stabilized nodal integration technique pres-
ented in Puso and Solberg (2006) for tetrahedral elements and in
Puso et al.(2009) for meshfree methods.
The formulation given in Puso and Solberg (2006) is a simple
stabilization only based on a standard displacement model using
tetrahedral elements. In Puso and Solberg (2006), a stabilization
term associated with a modied material law with low Poisson’s
ratio is introduced to eliminate volumetric locking being in near-
incompressible materials. Gee et al. (2009) have then further de-
veloped this stabilization with introduction of a general splitting
of the stresses into isochoric and volumetric components and
proposed the new isochoric uniform strain element with isochoric
stabilization.
Based on the stabilized formulation in Puso and Solberg (2006),
the stabilized element stiffness matrix of CS-FEM is adopted as
follows:
e e e points on the surfaces of the smoothing cells are required in the
K̃ SC1H8s = K̃ SC1H8 + K̃ SC8H8
e e
Here K̃ and K̃
SC1H8 denote the stiffness matrix of the
SC8H8
SC1H8 and SC8H8 elements, respectively, dened by:
8
T method without mapping (Liu et al., 2007a). In addition, Wachs-
K̃SC1H8 = B̃ ( D – α D̃ )B̃V , K̃SC8H8 = ∑ α B̃ D̃B̃VC
e e e T
C=1
where B̃ is determined on the element having the volume V e, α
is a stabilization parameter given in the interval of 0<α<1 and D̃
is a stabilization constitutive matrix. The stabilized element is
equivalent to the SC1H8 for α=0. For α=1 and D̃ = D , the
Vol. 16, No. 7 / November 2012
SC8H8 model is recovered. Thus, for 0<α<1, the stabilized
SC1H8 (or SC1H8s) provides solutions bounded between those
of the SC1H8 and the SC8H8. Hence, the accuracy the SC1H8s
produces much more accurate solution than both the standard
FEM-H8 and the SC8H8. In this paper, we fix the stabilization
factor at 0.1 which can be considered small. This value of α may
not be optimal. However, it ensures that the resulting SC1H8s
inherits the high accuracy of stress solutions derived from both
the SC1H8 and the stability of the SC8H8.
It is also noted that the constitutive matrix D̃ chosen aims to
minimize the effects of volumetric locking and to preserve the
global stability of the stiffness matrix (Puso and Solberg,
(2006)). For isotropic elastic materials, Lamé parameters µ and
λ̃ in D̃ are chosen such that:
µ = µ and λ̃ = min ( λ, 25 µ̃ ) (9)
Such a stabilization procedure also can be used for the FEM to
obtain a mid-way between the fully and under (one-point) inte-
grated H8 element. However, this stabilized FEM approach
demonstrated in numerical examples fails to the patch test and is
less effective than the stabilized CS-FEM.
3. Variational Formulation
Similarly to the 2D case (Liu et al., 2007b; Nguyen-Xuan et
al., 2008a), the present method can be formalized by a two field
variational principle. Using this variational principle, it was shown
in Liu et al. (2007b) that, for plane stress/strain conditions, the
CS-FEM solution is identical to the FEM solution when nc tends
to innity. This is still valid in the 3D case.
However, as nc=1, the CS-FEM element (SC1H8) is not equiv-
alent to the reduced H8 element with a one-point integration
scheme. This is different from plane conditions where the equiv-
alence of the CS-FEM element (SC1Q4) and the Q4 element
with the reduced integration always holds (Liu et al., 2007b).
The interested reader is referred to Fredriksson and Ottosen
(2007) for more detail.
Additionally, it is observed that the SC1H8 element passes the
patch test a priori, even for distorted elements, while the reduced
H8 element using one-point integration fails the patch test.
4. Explicit form of Shape Function Construction
It is evident from Eq. (6) that only shape function values at
(7)
smoothed strain formulation. This results in the exibility to com-
pute these shape function values for the CS-FEM, and they can
be explicitly obtained using the simple linear point interpolation
(8)
press interpolants can be used as an alternative to averaged shape
functions (Bordas and Natarajan, 2010).
An eight-node hexahedral element may be subdivided into 1 or
several smoothing cells, as shown in Fig. 4. Strain smoothing is
calculated over each cell and the volume integration in the smooth-
− 1233 −
 Hung Nguyen-Xuan, Hiep Vinh Nguyen, Stephane Bordas, Timon Rabczuk, and Marc Duflot

Fig. 5. Patch Test for Solids: E=1×106, v=0.25

(1985) is here employed to test the new elements. The purpose of

this illustration is to examine the convergence of the present
method under linear displacements imposed along the boundaries.
Displacements are prescribed at the exterior nodes only (9, ...,
16) according to the analytical expression:
Fig. 4. Division of an Element into Smoothing Cells (nc) and Value –4 –4
u = 5 ( 2x + y + z ) × 10 , v = 5 ( x + 2y + z ) × 10 ,
of the Shape Function on the Boundary Surface of the –4
Smoothing Cells: (a) The Element is Considered as Single w = 5 ( x + y + 2z ) × 10 (10)
Cell, (b) The Element is Partitioned into Eight Subcells (The
Figure 5 describes a unit cube with 7 distorted hexahedral
symbols (●) and (○) stand for the nodal field and the integra-
tion node, respectively.) elements. A comparison of the analytical solution with CS-FEM
solution (for various numbers of smoothing cells) is presented in
Table 1. It is observed that the exact values are reproduced to
ing cell is changed into surface integration on the boundary sur- machine precision. The CS-FEM (SC1H8 and SC8H8) and the
face. In this work, we illustrate four forms of the smoothed inte- stabilized CS-FEM (SC1H8s) pass the patch test, it is therefore
gration solids shown in Fig. 4. In the CS-FEM, the derivatives of capable of reproducing a linear field to machine precision.
the shape functions are not needed to compute the smoothed SC8H8 and SC1H8s are also rank sufficient (stable). These two
gradient matrix B̃ and the stiffness matrix is derived from properties ensure convergence of the new elements with mesh
surface integration on the boundary of the smoothing cells, there- renement. It is evident from Table 1 that the stabilized FEM
fore, the shape functions are only required on the surfaces of the (H8s) fails to the patch test.
smoothing cells. The shape functions are constructed simply
through linear interpolation on each edge of a cell’s boundary 5.2. 3D Cook’s Problem
surface and its values at the Gauss points on these boundary Consider a 3D tapered panel (of unit thickness) as shown in
surfaces are easily evaluated. The construction of the shape func- Fig. 6. This example aims to verify the performance of the
tions is explained in Fig. 4. present method under an in-plane shearing load, F=1, resulting
in deformation dominated by a bending response. The material
5. Numerical Results parameters of the problem are assumed to be E=1.0 and v=1/3.
This benchmark problem has been investigated by many authors
5.1 Patch Test in order to verify the performance of their elements. Because the
The patch test for 3D FEM, proposed by MacNeal and Harder exact solution is unknown, the best reference solutions are
Table 1. Patch Test for Solid Elements (Regardless of the number of smoothing cells, all smoothed finite elements and the stabilized
SFEM element lead to very similar results and all pass the patch test while the stabilized FEM fails to the patch test.)
Analytical/104 CS-FEM (and SC1H8s)/104 H8s/104
Node
u v w u V w u v w
1 5.16 5.625 4.88 5.16 5.625 4.875 5.92 6.147 5.39
2 11.1 8.45 8.45 11.14 8.45 8.45 11.2 9.10 8.22
3 13.1 12.06 10.1 13.06 12.06 10.13 12.9 12.16 10.7
4 7.63 10.02 7.42 7.63 10.02 7.415 7.84 9.36 7.7
5 7.35 6.675 8.96 7.345 6.675 8.96 7.66 7.189 9.09
6 11.7 9.85 11.7 11.71 9.85 11.74 11.1 9.21 11.6
7 14.6 14.09 13.9 14.57 14.09 13.85 14 13.32 13.5
8 8.89 11.79 11.6 8.885 11.79 11.57 9.13 11.87 10.7

− 1234 − KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering

 A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Three Dimensional Solid Structures
Fig. 6. 3D Cook’s Model and Coarse Mesh
exploited. The reference value of the vertical displacement at the
center of the tip section (C) is 23.9642 (Fredriksson and Ottosen,
2004) and the reference value of the strain energy is 12.015
(Mijuca and Berkovic, 1998).
For comparison, the assumed strain stabilized element (ASQBI)
(Belytschko and Bendeman, 1993) is employed. It is observed
from Fig. 7 and Fig. 8(a) that the SFEM elements yield improved
Fig. 7. The Convergence in Energy Norm: (a) Strain Energy, (b)
Convergence Rate
Fig. 8. The Convergence of Tip Displacement for the Cook Prob-
lem: (a) Without Stabilization, (b) With Several Stabilization
Values, (c) Strain Energy with Stabilization (α=0.1), (d) Con-
vergence Rate in the Energy Norm with Stabilization (α=0.1)
Vol. 16, No. 7 / November 2012 − 1235 −
results compared to the H8 element. It seems that the ASQBI
exhibits the best performance. In addition to stabilization, Fig.
8(b) shows the performance of the present element with several
parameters α. It is seen that the stabilized element (α=0.1) can
produce more accurate solution than other versions. Figs. 8c-d
show again that the stabilized element, SC1H8s (α=0.1), can
produce higher accurate results than the ASQBI.
5.3 3D Cantilever Beam
A cantilever beam, see Fig. 9(a), as studied in the 2D case in
Nguyen-Xuan et al. (2008a) is considered next. Fig. 9(b) illus-
trates the discretization based on a regular mesh of eight-node
hexahedral elements.
Figure 10(a) plots the strain energy versus degrees of freedom
of methods while Figs. 10(b) and 10(c) describe the convergence
rate in displacement and energy norms. It is seen that the CS-
FEM elements are in general more accurate than the FEM. It is
also observed from Fig. 10(c) that the stabilized element (SC1H8s)
produces the result that is not too different to the original SC1H8
element, but this element is stable. Also, note that if the stabili-
zation factor α chosen is beyond from 0, for example 0.2, 0.6,
0.8, etc, the result of the stabilized element is asymptotic to that
of the standard H8 element.
The accuracy of the CS-FEM elements for the same beam
Fig. 9. A 3D Cantilever Beam subjected to a Parabolic Traction at
the Free End: (a) Problem, (b) Eight-node Hexahedral Regu-
lar Elements, (c) Eight-node Hexahedral Irregular Elements
 Hung Nguyen-Xuan, Hiep Vinh Nguyen, Stephane Bordas, Timon Rabczuk, and Marc Duflot

Fig. 10. Convergence of the CS-FEM Elements, for the Cantilever Beam Problem: (a) Strain Energy, (b) Convergence Rate in Displace-
ment Norm, (c) Convergence Rate in Energy Norm-shown in Parentheses in the Legend

problem is also assessed for a near incompressible material, v=
0.4999.
Figure 11 plots the vertical displacements, normal stresses and
shear stresses along the neutral axis for a mesh of 256 hexahedral
elements. It is clear that poor displacement accuracy is observed
for all elements, especially for the SC1H8 while this element
yields more accurate stresses than the H8 and SC8H8.
These results indicate that the SC1H8 suffers from poor dis-
placement accuracy for both the compressible and incompres-
sible cases.
The stabilized elements give results that are in good
agreement with the analytical solution, as indicated by Figs. 10
and Fig. 12.
Now we study the effect of mesh distortion on the solutions.
Both regular and irregular elements are considered as shown in
Fig. 9. The coordinates of interior nodes are perturbed as follows
(Liu et al., 2007a):
x' = x + rc αir ∆x
y' = y + rc αir ∆y (11)
where rc is a generated random number given values between -
1.0 and 1.0, αir ∈[0, 0.5] is used to control the shapes of the

Fig. 11. 3D Near-incompressible Cantilever Beam Problem Solved by the Non-stabilized Formulation: (a) Vertical Displacement (0≤x≤L,
y=0), (b) Normal Stress (-D/2≤y≤D/2), (c) Shear Stress (-D/2≤y≤D/2)

Fig. 12. 3D Near-incompressible Cantilever Beam Problem by the Stabilized Method (α=0.1): (a) Vertical Displacement (0≤x≤L, y=0), (b)
Normal Stress (-D/2≤y≤D/2), (c) Shear Stress (-D/2≤y≤D/2)

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 A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Three Dimensional Solid Structures

Fig. 13. Convergence of the CS-FEM Elements for the Cantilever Beam Problem with Distorted Mesh (αir=0.4): (a) Strain Energy, (b) Rel-
ative Error in Displacement Norm, (c) Relative Error in Energy Norm

distorted elements and x, y are initial regular element sizes in the

x- and y-directions, respectively.
As presented in Section 2, volume integrals appearing in the
element stiffness computation are changed into surface integra-
tion along the elements’ boundaries, and shape functions them-
selves are used to compute the gradients as well as the stiffness
matrix. This permits to use elements with distortion that can cause
difficulty in the standard FEM. Fig. 13 shows the convergence in
strain energy, and the relative error corresponding to the dis-
placement norm and the energy norm. It shows that in this parti-
cular case, the CS-FEM is less sensitive to mesh distortion than
the FEM. While this insensitivity is not strong when observing Fig. 14. (a) Discretization of One-eighth of Hollow Sphere Model
displacement accuracy, it is evident when considering energy ac- using 8-Node Hexahedral Elements, (b) Strain Energy for
curacy. Indeed, in terms of displacement error, only the SC8H8 is the Hollow Sphere subjected to Inner Pressure
slightly more accurate than FEM while the result of stabilized
CS-FEM element is not improved. This is due to the effect on the
fact that low-subcell elements such as the SC1H8 lead to poor
displacement accuracy and that this effect is strengthened for
highly distorted meshes.

5.4 3D Lame Problem

A 3-D Lame problem consist of a hollow sphere with inner
radius a=1 m, outer radius b=2 m and subjected to an internal
pressure P=1 N/m2. For this benchmark problem, the analytical
solution is available in polar coordinates by Timoshenko and
Goodier (1987).
3 3
Pa r b
- ( 1 – 2v ) + ( 1 + v ) -------3
ur = ----------------------
E(a – b )
3 3 2r
3 3 3 3 3 3 Fig. 15. Energy Error Norm for the Hollow Sphere subjected to
Pa ( b – r ) Pa ( b + 2r )
σr = --------------------------
3 3 3
- ; σθ = ------------------------------
3 3 3
- (12) Inner Pressure
r (a – b ) 2r ( b – a )
where r is the radial distance from the centroid of the sphere to the freedom of methods. Fig. 15 depicts the error in energy norm. It
point of interest in the sphere. As the problem is spherically is seen that the stabilized CS-FEM is superior to FEM and CS-
symmetrical, only one-eighth of the sphere model is shown in Fig. FEM in the accuracy of solution.
14(a) and symmetry conditions are imposed on the three symmetric The distribution of the radial displacement, radial and tangential
planes. The material parameters of the problem are E=1.0 kPa and stresses using the CS-FEM compared with the analytical solution
v=0.3. The exact strain energy of the problem is 6.3e-04. is presented in Fig. 16. It is again seen that poor displacement
Figure 14(b) shows the strain energy versus degrees of accuracy is observed for the SC1H8 while this element is found

Vol. 16, No. 7 / November 2012 − 1237 −

 Hung Nguyen-Xuan, Hiep Vinh Nguyen, Stephane Bordas, Timon Rabczuk, and Marc Duflot

Fig. 16. (a) Radial Displacement v, (b) Radial and Tangential

Stresses for the Hollow Sphere Subjected to Inner Pressure
Fig. 19. (a) An Illustration for Deformation of L-Shape Problem, (b)
Contribution of von Mises Stress Field

Fig. 20. The Convergence in Energy Norm for the 3D L-Shape

Fig. 17. Displacement Error Norm with Different Poisson’s Ratios
for the Hollow Sphere subjected to Inner Pressure
to yield more accurate stresses than the H8 and SC8H8. Also, the
stabilized CS-FEM provides accurate solution of both displacement
and stresses for the compressible case.
Moreover, Fig. 17 shows the behavior of the numerical solu-
tion in displacement error norm when Poisson’s ratio approaches
0.5. It is observed that both FEM and CS-FEM are very sensitive
to volumetric locking whereas the stabilized CS-FEM works well
volumetric locking.
5.5 3D L-shape Problem
Consider a square plate with a square hole in the center,
Problem: (a) Strain Energy, (b) Convergence Rate-shown
in Parentheses in the Legend
subjected to a surface traction q as given by Fig. 18. Due to its
symmetry, a quarter of the domain is modeled, recovering a
problem similar to the 2D L-shape problem.
The numerical parameters are as follows: q=1, a=1, t=1, E=1,
v=0.3. Fig. 19 plots the deformed configuration. The estimated
strain energy derived from the procedure of Richardson’s extra-
polation by Cugnon (2000) is 6.203121186. The energy norm
value corresponds to a dimensionless length h=1 N , where N is
the number of Degrees of Freedom (DOF) remaining after apply-
ing boundary conditions.
As mentioned in Nguyen-Xuan et al. (2008b), a stress singu-
larity exists at the re-entrant corner. The relative energy error is
shown in Table 2, the convergence of the strain energy in Fig.
20(a), and the convergence rates are given in Fig. 20(b). It is seen
that the CS-FEM elements are more accurate than the standard
FEM. Additionally, the SC1H8 provides the optimum rate despite
the presence of the singularity. This was also observed in the 2D

Table 2. Relative Error in Energy Norm of the 3D L-Shape Problem

Mesh FEM CS-FEM
D.O.F
No. H8 H8s SC1H8 SC8H8 SC1H8s
1 171 34.10 24.24 32.07 29.21 22.68
2 925 20.43 9.23 13.45 17.49 8.08
3 5913 12.01 3.68 6.45 10.42 2.70
Fig. 18. 3D L-Shape Problem 4 11011 10.15 2.65 5.14 8.85 1.59

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 A Cell-based Smoothed Finite Element Method for Three Dimensional Solid Structures

Table 3. Percentage of Relative Error in Energy Norm for the Finite

Plate with Two Holes
Mesh FEM CS-FEM
D.O.F
No. H8 H8s SC1H8 SC8H8 SC1H8s
1 263 24.5 24.50 14 23.1 16.66
2 908 13.4 13.3 7.63 12.3 8.33
3 3350 7.39 7.38 3.77 6.70 4.19
4 12842 4.52 4.51 1.82 4.04 2.55

cases (Nguyen-Xuan et al., 2008b).
5.6 3-D Finite Plate with Two Circular Holes
Figure 21(a) illustrates a finite plate with two holes of radius
r=0.2 subjected to an internal pressure p=5 kPa. Due to its
symmetry, only the below left quadrant of the plate is modelled.
The material properties are: Young’s modulus E=2.1×1011Pa,
poisson’s ratio v=0.3. The analytical solution is unknown. In
order to estimate the reliability of present method, we adopt the
extrapolation procedure studied by Richardson (1910) for the
CS-FEM solution and find that the best estimated strain energy
obtained by the SC1H8 element is 0.61026×105. The relative
error and convergence rates are evaluated based on this estimated
global energy. The convergence of energy norm is plotted in Fig.
23. The increased accuracy of the CS-FEM elements over the
standard H8 element is clear from these figures. A deformed
shape is shown in Fig. 22.
Fig. 23. Plate with Two Holes: Convergence in Energy Norm: (a)
Strain Energy, (b) Convergence Rate
5.7 Cross-shaped Structure
Finally, let us consider a cross-shaped structure which is fixed
at the two end faces while the remaining faces is subjected to a
surface compression q as given in Fig. 24. The numerical para-
meters are as follows: q=1, a=1,000, E=1, v=0.3
Figure 25 depicts strain energy of FEM and CS-FEM models.
It is seen that the CS-FEM elements produce improved solutions
compared with the standard FEM.
Figure 26 illustrates the distribution of von Mises stress field
via the whole domain of problem. It is observed that the presence
of the singularity appears at the corners.

Fig. 24. Cross-shaped Structure

Fig. 21. Finite Plate with Two Circular Holes and Coarse Mesh: (a)
Model, (b) Mesh of 768 Eight-node Hexahedral Elements

Fig. 22. (a) An Illustration for Deformation of Finite Plate, (b) Contri-
bution of von Mises Stress Field Fig. 25. Convergence of Strain Energy for Cross-shaped Structure

Vol. 16, No. 7 / November 2012 − 1239 −

 Hung Nguyen-Xuan, Hiep Vinh Nguyen, Stephane Bordas, Timon Rabczuk, and Marc Duflot
Fig. 26. Cross-shaped Structure: von Mises Stress Field
Fig. 27. The Illustration of Computational Efficiency for CS-FEM:
(a) The Error in Displacement Norm, (b) The Error in
Energy Norm Rate
6. Computational Efficiency
Now we mention the computational efficiency of present
method compared with standard FEM. Without loss of gener-
ality, let us consider the computational efficiency for the canti-
lever beam. Owing to the establishment of the assumed strain
field in Eq. (1), no additional degrees of freedom are necessary.
Moreover, because the stiffness construction of CS-FEM is
based on the smoothing cells inside each element, there is no
coupling between nodal degrees of freedom that are a distance of
up to two elements apart. On the other words, the bandwidth of
CS-FEM stiffness matrix is the same as that of FEM, and hence
the required time to solve algebraic equations for CS-FEM is the
same as that of FEM. Fig. 27 illustrates the errors in displace-
ment and energy norms against the CPU time (seconds). It is
observed that the computation time of the CS-FEM for three
dimensional cases is slightly longer than those of the H8. The
reason is due to the additional time required for setting up the
global stiffness matrix of CS-FEM. This comes from the addi-
tional time required for evaluating the integrations on six
surfaces of smoothing hexahedral cells. However, considering
the computational efficiency (computation time for the same
accuracy) in terms of displacement and energy error norms,
− 1240 −
SC8H8 and SC1H8s are more effective.
7. Conclusions
This paper proposed new 8-noded hexahedral elements based
on the cell-based smoothed finite element method (CS-FEM)
with various numbers of subcells. These elements are coined
SCkH8 where k is the number of subcells. Low numbers of
subcells lead to higher stress accuracy but instabilities; high
numbers yield lower stress accuracy but are always stable.
A stabilization procedure is presented where the stiffness matrix
is written as a linear combination of the one-smoothing cell
element and the eight- smoothing cell element, resulting in higher
dual (stress) accuracy and the disappearance of zero energy modes.
• All the SCkH8 elements (k =1 and 8) always pass the patch test,
even for distorted meshes.
• The ability to predict the strain energy of the proposed elements
is not strongly inuenced by mesh distortion, where they out-
perform standard FEM for the example tested. However, in this
case, the displacement error is only slightly improved.
• The SC1H8 element that exhibits zero energy modes, while the
remaining SC8H8 element is rank sufficient.
• For all examples treated, the proposed element provides more
accuracy than the FEM brick element and is insensitive to
volumetric locking when suitably stabilized.
• The SC8H8 (without stabilization) and the SC1H8s (with sta-
bilization) seem to be the best candidates for practical applica-
tions since they are both stable and accurate.
• The theoretical bases associated with the stabilization parameter
need to be further investigated.
Acknowledgements
The support of the Vietnam National Foundation for Science
and Technology Development (NAFOSTED); (Grant No. 107.02-
2012.17) is gratefully acknowledged.
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