In this paper, the modified Gauss integration method is developed to eliminate the shear and membrane locking phenomena of the degenerated shell element. The behavior of the element based on the Mindlin/Reissner theory in plates and shells sometimes causes a problem. In displacement-based shell elements, the full integration of stiffness matrices leads to a 'locking' or over-stiff behavior. The selective or reduced integration procedures may often overcome these difficulties, while overstiff solutions may still occur in the analysis with a highly constrained boundary. Except for the six zero-energy modes associated with shell rigid body movements, during the reduced integration of the stiffness matrices, many extra zero spurious energy modes are introduced due to reduced integration. This is a serious defect of degenerated shell element. In previous studies, several methods such as the addition of nonconforming displacement modes, an assumed strain method, and hybrid and mixed elements have been introduced in an attempt to overcome these difficulties. In this study a newly modified Gauss integration method combining both a selective and a weight-modified integration is suggested. Numerical experiments show that the new selective integration and weight-modified integration rule is very effective in eliminating the shear and membrane locking in static and modal analyses, and removes spurious zero-energy modes as well. Also, the effectiveness of proposed shell element is tested by applying it to some example problems. We solved post-buckling problem by the Riks arc-length method and dynamic problem by the Newmark's time integration method, as well as static problems.
The partial selective reduced integration method and applications to shell problems