Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc

Triangular ®nite elements with rotational degrees of

freedom and enhanced strain modes
R. Piltner a,*, R.L. Taylor b
a
Department of Engineering Mechanics, W317.2 Nebraska Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0526, USA
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, SEMM, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Received 30 July 1998; accepted 3 March 1999

Abstract

Three sets of enhanced strain functions are considered for the improvement of the three-node triangular ®nite
element with rotational degrees of freedom. In each case, four enhanced strain terms are used. The four unknowns
associated with the enhanced strain terms can be eliminated by static condensation so that nine degrees of freedom
remain for the enhanced elements. Faster convergence in the energy norm is achieved. The enhanced elements are
also able to deal with nearly incompressible plane strain problems considered, provided all rotational degrees of
freedom do not vanish at all element nodes. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Finite element method; Enhanced strain method; Plane stress±strain analysis

1. Introduction Rifai also found that the incompatible four-node dis-

The constant strain triangle (CST) with six degrees
of freedom shows poor performance for problems with
bending and for plane strain problems in the nearly
incompressible limit. An improvement for bending pro-
blems was achieved by Allman, by introducing ro-
tational degrees of freedom at the element nodes [1,2].
However, in the nearly incompressible case the Allman
element can still show locking problems (see examples
in Section 5.4). Elements with rotational degrees of
freedom also have been considered, for example, in
Refs. [1±15].
In recent years, the concept of enhanced strains
introduced by Simo and Rifai [16] has been used by
several authors to improve the performance of low
order ®nite elements (see Refs. [15±23]). Simo and
* Corresponding author.
placement element QM6, described in Ref. [24], can be
viewed as an enhanced strain ®nite element with four
enhanced strain terms. In this paper, the concept of
enhanced strains is used to develop improved triangu-
lar ®nite elements with rotational degrees of freedom.
Three di€erent possibilities of choosing the enhanced
strain terms are considered. Several numerical
examples are chosen to demonstrate the improvements
due to the enhanced strain terms.
2. Variational formulation
For our ®nite element approximation, we consider
the following variational formulation [16]:
 
1 T
Pˆ e Eee ÿ uT fÅ dV ÿ uT TÅ dS ÿ s T e i dV 1†
V 2 S V

0045-7949/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 5 - 7 9 4 9 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 9 5 - 4
362 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368

where the strains are decomposed into two parts: ®eld leading to an element which passes the patch test.
In the case of the triangular element with rotational
e ˆ ec ‡ ei 2† degrees of freedom, we do not have many higher order
stress terms. There are only two linear terms, in ad-
The compatible displacement ®eld u leads to the dition to the constant stress terms (see Eq. (22)). If we
strains would require that the enhanced strains are also or-
e c ˆ Du ˆ Bq 3† thogonal to the linear stress terms a priori, we would
not be able to calculate any parameters l for the ®eld
where B is a strain matrix and q contains the nodal e i : Therefore, for the triangular enhanced strain el-
displacements and rotations. The enhanced strain ®eld ement it will be sucient to choose the reference stres-
ses in the form
e i ˆ Benh l 4† 2 3
1 0 0
contains parameters l , which will be eliminated at the s  ˆ 4 0 1 0 5b 11†
element level. Carrying out the variation in Eq. (1) we 0 0 1
obtain
and to set s ˆ s  : Since Eq. (7) is satis®ed a priori
 ÿ
 with this choice of stresses, we cannot compute the
duT fÅ dV
T
d Du † E Du ‡ e i dV ÿ
V V
stress parameters b from the variational formulation.
5† Therefore, the output stresses sà will be computed from
ÿ du TÅ dS ˆ 0
T the element strains through
S ÿ

sà ˆ E Du ‡ e i 12†
T ÿ

deei † E Du ‡ e i ÿ s dV ˆ 0 6†
V

3. Finite element approximations

sT e i dV ˆ 0
ds 7†
V
Using triangular area coordinates x1 , x2 , and x3 , the
In the choice for the enhanced strains e we are not i compatible displacement ®eld for the triangular el-
completely free; in order to satisfy the patch test we ement with rotational degrees of freedom can be writ-
have to impose the restriction on e i that constant stres- ten as [1]:
ses s c do no work on the enhanced strains [16]. This u ˆ u1 x1 ‡ u2 x2 ‡ u3 x3
requirement can be expressed in the form
1
‡ l12 cos g12 o2 ÿ o1 †x1 x2
sTc e i dV ˆ 0
ds 8† 2
V 13†
1
or equivalently as ‡ l23 cos g23 o3 ÿ o2 †x2 x3
2
1
e i dV ˆ 0 9† ‡ l31 cos g31 o1 ÿ o3 †x3 x1
V
2

Eq. (9) represents the minimum requirement in the v ˆ v1 x1 ‡ v2 x2 ‡ v3 x3

enhanced strain method. In general, we require, in ad-
dition to Eq. (9), that the enhanced strains e i are or- 1
thogonal to reference stresses s  (see Table VII in Ref. ‡ l12 sin g12 o2 ÿ o1 †x1 x2
2
[22]): 14†
1
‡ l23 sin g23 o3 ÿ o2 †x2 x3
2
sT e i dV ˆ
ds deeiT s  dV ˆ 0 10†
V V 1
‡ l31 sin g31 o1 ÿ o3 †x3 x1
In Ref. [22], the term `reference stresses' has been used 2
to distinguish these stresses from the ®nal element Using the relationships
stresses, which are computed from the element strains.
The stress ®eld s , in Eq. (1), plays an important role yj ÿ yi
cos gij ˆ nx ˆ 15†
in the construction of an admissible enhanced strain lij
 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368 363

xj ÿ xi
sin gij ˆ ny ˆ ÿ 16† 4.1. First set of enhanced strain functions
lij
In order to identify a possible set of enhanced
yji ˆ yj ÿ yi , x ji ˆ x j ÿ x i 17† strains in area coordinates, we write a complete sec-
ond-order displacement ®eld in the following form:
q
lij ˆ x j ÿ x i †2 ‡ yj ÿ yi †2 18† u ˆ u1 x1 ‡ u2 x2 ‡ u3 x3 ‡ b12 y21 x1 x2 ‡ b23 y32 x2 x3

the displacement ®eld can be rewritten in the form ‡ b31 y13 x3 x1 ‡ a12 x 21 x1 x2 ‡ a23 x 32 x2 x3

u ˆ u1 x1 ‡ u2 x2 ‡ u3 x3 ‡ a31 x 13 x3 x1 23†

ÿ y21 x1 x2 ‡ y13 x3 x1 †
‡ o1 v ˆ v1 x1 ‡ v2 x2 ‡ v3 x3 ‡ a12 y21 x1 x2 ‡ a23 y32 x2 x3
2
y21 x1 x2 ÿ y32 x2 x3 † ‡ a31 y13 x3 x1 ÿ b12 x 21 x1 x2 ÿ b23 x 32 x2 x3
‡ o2
2
ÿ b31 x 13 x3 x1 24†
y32 x2 x3 ÿ y13 x3 x1 †
‡ o3 19†
2 The Allman displacement ®eld is obtained if we set

1
x 21 x1 x2 ÿ x 13 x3 x1 † bij ˆ oj ÿ oi †, aij ˆ 0 25†
v ˆ v1 x1 ‡ v2 x2 ‡ v3 x3 ‡ o1 2
2
ÿ x 21 x1 x2 ‡ x 32 x2 x3 † However, the three quadratic displacement terms lead
‡ o2 only to two deformation modes, because for the case
2
that all element rotations oj are equal, the associated
ÿ x 32 x2 x3 ‡ x 13 x3 x1 † displacement contributions are zero. Therefore, the de-
‡ o3 20†
2 formation mode associated with the coecient
The compatible displacement ®eld, Eqs. (19) and (20), l1 ˆ b12 ˆ b23 ˆ b31 26†
leads to a strain ®eld e c which can be written as
is not included in the Allman ®eld and can be used to
à a ˆ BGq
e c ˆ Ba à ˆ Bq 21† get the ®rst enhanced strain term. If we choose
where l2 ˆ a12 , l3 ˆ a23 , l4 ˆ a31 27†
2 3
1 y 0 0 0 we get the remaining terms in the quadratic displace-
Bà ˆ 4 0 0 1 x 05 22† ment expansion. Using the coupled incompatible dis-
0 ÿx 0 ÿy 1 placement ®eld
 
and qT ˆ ‰u1 v1 o1 u2 v2 o2 u3 v3 o3 Š: The strain par- u ˆ l1 y21 x1 x2 ‡ y32 x2 x3 ‡ y13 x3 x1 ‡ l2 x 21 x1 x2
ameters a are related to the nine nodal degrees of free-
dom through the matrix G, which is given in the ‡ l3 x 32 x2 x3 ‡ l4 x 13 x3 x1 28†
Appendix of Ref. [1]. From Eq. (22) it is seen that the
strain ®eld e c contains only ®ve linearly independent  
terms. Therefore, the nine parameter Allman element v ˆ l1 ÿ x 21 x1 x2 ÿ x 32 x2 x3 ÿ x 13 x3 x1
has four eigenvalues equal to zero, and at least one ro-
‡ l2 y21 x1 x2 ‡ l3 y32 x2 x3 ‡ l4 y13 x3 x1 29†
tation parameter has to be prescribed in a ®nite el-
ement mesh in order to prevent the global system of
does not lead to strains, which are orthogonal to con-
equations from being singular.
stant stress terms. In order to make the resulting
strains orthogonal to constant stress terms, one can
simply replace the area coordinates xi by x i ˆ xi ÿ 1=3:
A similar approach for obtaining strains which are or-
4. Selection of enhanced strain modes thogonal to constant stresses was proposed in Ref.
[25], where appropriate constant strains are added to
The choice of enhanced strain terms is not unique. an initial set of enhanced strains derived from an
Here, we consider three di€erent sets of enhanced incompatible displacement ®eld. The modi®cation
strain terms. leads to the following enhanced strain matrix:
364 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368
2 3
B11 B12 B13 B14 In the numerical examples, frame invariance is veri®ed
Benh ˆ 4 B21 B22 B23 B24 5 30† by describing each problem in a series of di€erent
B31 B32 B33 B34 rotated frames.
where
4.2. Second set of enhanced strain functions
1 ÿ

B11 ˆ ay y23 ‡ by y31 ‡ cy y12 ,
2A  y,
Using the local cartesian coordinates x,  which are
1 related to the global coordinates x, y and the area
B21 ˆ ax x 23 ‡ bx x 31 ‡ cx x 12 † coordinates x1 , x2 , and x3 through
2A
x ˆ x ÿ x 0
1 ÿ
B31 ˆ ay x 32 ‡ by x 13 ‡ cy x 21 ‡ ax y32 ‡ bx y13      
2A 1 1 1

ˆ x1 ÿ x 1 ‡ x2 ÿ x 2 ‡ x3 ÿ x3
‡ cx y21 3 3 3

y ˆ y ÿ y0
cy x 21 cx y21
B12 ˆ ÿ , B22 ˆ ,      
2A 2A 1 1 1 33†
cx x 21 ÿ cy y21 ˆ x1 ÿ y1 ‡ x2 ÿ y2 ‡ x3 ÿ y3
B32 ˆ 3 3 3
2A
we can choose the following enhanced strain matrix:
ay x 32 ax y32 2 3
B13 ˆ ÿ , B23 ˆ , x 0 0 0
2A 2A
Benh ˆ 4 0 y 0 05 34†
ax x 32 ÿ ay y32 0 0 x y
B33 ˆ
2A
The resulting element, denoted TE4_1, gives improved
by x 13 bx y13 results compared to the Allman element. However, the
B14 ˆÿ , B24 ˆ , element is not frame invariant. In order to make the
2A 2A
31† results at least independent of the ®nite element user's
bx x 13 ÿ by y13 input data, one can choose the local cartesian coordi-
B34 ˆ
2A nates depending on the geometric features of the tri-
angle: one could choose the local x axis to be parallel
and
to the largest edge of the triangle. If the element has
2A ˆ x 21 y31 ÿ x 31 y21 
two equal edges, the x-axis is chosen to be parallel to
the third edge. If all edges are equal, it does not matter
    which one is chosen for the alignment of the local
1 1 coordinates.
ax ˆ x 21 x2 ÿ ‡ x 13 x3 ÿ ,
3 3
   
1 1 4.3. Third set of enhanced strain functions
ay ˆ y21 x2 ÿ ‡ y13 x3 ÿ
3 3
There are many ways to combine linear strain terms
    to form an enhanced strain matrix. At this time no
1 1
bx ˆ x 21 x1 ÿ ‡ x 32 x3 ÿ , strategy is available to construct an optimal set of
3 3 enhanced strain terms. Therefore, several enhanced
    strain matrices have been tested in numerical examples.
1 1
by ˆ y21 x1 ÿ ‡ y32 x3 ÿ Most of them gave disappointing results with the
3 3
exception of the following enhanced strain matrix:
    2 3
1 1 x 0 y 0
cx ˆ x 32 x2 ÿ ‡ x 13 x1 ÿ , B ˆ 40
enh
y 0 x 5 35†
3 3
    32† ÿy ÿx x y
1 1
cy ˆ y32 x2 ÿ ‡ y13 x1 ÿ The use of the enhanced strain matrix (35) leads to a
3 3
frame invariant element, which will be denoted as
The resulting element, denoted TE4, is frame invariant. TE4_2.
 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368 365

Fig. 1. Finite element mesh for cantilever beam problem.

5. Numerical examples

Several problems have been chosen in order to test

the performance of the three-node elements with four
enhanced strain modes. The results are compared with Fig. 2. Cook's membrane problem: plane stress structure with
the analytical solutions, and the results obtained from unit load uniformly distributed along right edge E ˆ 1,
n ˆ 1=3).
the CST and the original Allman element. For the el-
ement TE4 the enhanced strain matrix (30) is used,
whereas for element TE4_1 the enhanced strains (34) 5.2. Cook's membrane problem
are used, and element TE4_2 employs the enhanced
strains (35). All elements we compare are implemented The plane stress structure shown in Fig. 2 was
in the ®nite element program FEAP (e.g., see Chapter suggested by Cook [27] as a test for membrane el-
15 of Ref. [26]). All elements considered pass the patch ements in skewed meshes. The material parameters are
test. E ˆ 1 and n ˆ 1=3: The shear load is distributed uni-
formly along the right edge. Table 2 gives the displace-
ments, stresses and energy results for di€erent meshes.
5.1. Beam bending: coarse mesh test
For a comparison, the results for the quadrilateral
QM6 element are also included for a 16  16 mesh.
A beam modeled with twenty elements is subjected Considering both stress and displacement results,
to two load cases (Fig. 1). Warping at the left end of element TE4 appears to give the best overall
the beam is possible. Plane stress conditions are performance in this example.
assumed in the model. The results of ®ve di€erent el-
ements for the maximum displacement at point A and
5.3. Cantilever beam under a tip load: convergence study
the normal stress sxx at point B are given in Table
1.The stress at point B was calculated at an element
Gauss-point. The three Gauss-points of the triangular In this example, the left end of the beam is ®xed and
element were chosen as the midside points of the three at the right end a parabolic shear distribution is
element edges. The material parameters are E ˆ 1500 applied (Fig. 3). The material parameters of the plane
and n ˆ 0:25: Element TE4_2 appears to be a very stress structure are E ˆ 3:0  107 and n ˆ 0:25: The
¯exible element giving displacements which are larger results are shown in Table 3.
than the exact ones.
5.4. Plane strain problem in the nearly incompressible
case
Table 1
Comparison of plane stress solutions obtained with triangular
elements for cantilever beam problems In order to test the behavior of the enhanced tri-
angular elements, we look at a plane strain system
Case 1 Case 2 with one very coarse and two ®ne mesh discretizations
(Figs. 4 and 5). The numerical results are shown in
Element vA sxxB vA sxxB Tables 4 and 5. The material parameters are E ˆ 1500
and n ˆ 0:49=0:499=0:4999=0:49999: For the coarse
CST 37.14 ÿ1165 39.49 ÿ1590 mesh the CST and the Allman element lock in the
Allman 86.54 ÿ2676 88.06 ÿ3624 nearly incompressible case. This example shows that
TE4 91.64 ÿ2908 92.95 ÿ3927
for a very coarse mesh di€erent enhanced strains can
TE4_1 96.26 ÿ2936 97.92 ÿ3947
TE4_2 102.0 ÿ2743 102.4 ÿ3676 lead to big di€erences in the results (Table 4). It is
Exact 100 ÿ3000 102.6 ÿ4050 known that for special mesh patterns locking can be
avoided for the CST element as it is the case for mesh
366 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368

Table 2
Results for the problem shown in Fig. 2 (Number of elements=2N 2, where N is the number of divisions in each direction)

Displacement v at C Maximum stress at A Energy

Element N=2 N=4 N = 16 N=2 N=4 N = 16 N=2 N=4 N = 16

CST 11.99 18.28 23.41 0.0760 0.1498 0.2217 11.99 18.27 23.42
Allman 19.67 22.41 23.81 0.1523 0.2047 0.2324 19.68 22.44 23.86
TE4 20.27 22.49 23.81 0.1640 0.2085 0.2336 20.53 22.71 23.89
TE4_1 20.74 22.64 23.82 0.1587 0.2061 0.2326 21.03 22.85 23.90
TE4_2 21.14 22.64 23.83 0.1491 0.1973 0.2299 21.77 23.12 23.93
QM6 23.88 0.2364 23.93

Table 3
Results for the problem shown in Fig. 3 (Allman's beam example)

Displacement v at x ˆ 48, y ˆ 0 Energy/103

Mesh CST Allman TE4 TE4_1 TE4_2 CST Allman TE4 TE4_1 TE4_2

1x4 0.0907 0.2696 0.3037 0.3348 0.4033 3.63 10.78 12.15 13.39 16.11
2x8 0.1984 0.3260 0.3382 0.3471 0.3652 7.94 13.05 13.54 13.90 14.63
4x16 0.3056 0.3472 0.3506 0.3530 0.3567 12.23 13.90 14.04 14.14 14.30
8x32 0.3421 0.3539 0.3548 0.3554 0.3563 13.69 14.17 14.21 14.24 14.29
16x64 0.3531 0.3560 0.3562 0.3564 0.3566 14.14 14.26 14.27 14.28 14.30
Exact 0.3566 14.28

1 in Fig. 5. (Remark: In Ref. [28] Hughes and Taylor

found a superior performance of linear triangular
bending elements in cross-diagonal mesh patterns
when compared to other mesh patterns.) In general
however, the CST and the Allman element will lock
also for a ®ne discretization as, for example, for mesh
2 shown in Fig. 5. The enhanced triangular elements
do not lock except for the case when due to symmetry
conditions in the problem all rotational degrees of free-
dom vanish a priori. In a problem with rotational sym-
metry, all nodal rotations are zero in the entire ®nite
element mesh and the strains of each triangular el-
ement reduce to those of a CST element. Therefore, no

Fig. 4. Plane strain structure with resultant shear force

Fig. 3. Cantilever beam and three meshes. 2P ˆ 300:
 R. Piltner, R.L. Taylor / Computers and Structures 75 (2000) 361±368 367

Table 5
Displacement results for the meshes shown in Fig. 5

Displacement v at A(case: n ˆ 0:49999)

Mesh CST Allman TE4 TE4_1 TE4_2

1 76.23 76.47 78.16 77.79 78.50

2 3.73 9.21 77.86 77.57 78.37
Exact 78.375

Fig. 5. Two ®ne meshes for the beam problem shown in Fig.
4.
improvements can be achieved with rotational degrees
of freedom in such a situation. For a problem with
vanishing rotations one can add a pressure distribution
to the triangular element [29].
enhanced strain terms, it would be interesting for
future research whether some additional `quality' cri-
teria and conditions in addition to Eq. (9) can be
de®ned in order to construct an optimal set of
enhanced strains

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