A flat triangular shell element with Loof nodes

In the formulation of flat shell elements it is difficult to achieve inter-element compatibility between membrane and transverse displacements for non-coplanar elements. Many elements lack proper nodal degrees of freedom to model intersections making the assembly of elements troublesome. A flat triangular shell element is established by a combination of a new plate bending element DKTL and the well-known linear membrane strain element LST, and for this element the above-mentioned deficiencies are avoided. The plate bending element DKTL is based on Discrete Kirchhoff Theory and Loof nodes. The nodal configuration of the element is similar to the SemiLoof element, and the formulation is an improvement of a previous formulation. The element is used for both linear statics, linear buckling and geometrical non-linear analysis, and numerical examples are presented to show the robustness, accuracy and quick convergence of the element.