Accuracy of the TRIA3 thick shell element

The accuracy of the new TRIA3 thick shell element is assessed via comparison with a theoretical solution for thick homogeneous and honeycomb flat simply supported plates under the action of a uniform pressure load. The theoretical thick plate solution is based on the theory developed by Reissner and includes the effects of transverse shear flexibility which are not included in the thin plate solutions based on Kirchoff plate theory. In addition, the TRIA3 is assessed using a set of finite element test problems developed by the MacNeal-Schwendler Corp. (MSC). Comparison of the COSMIC TRIA3 element as well as those from MSC and Universal Analytics Inc. (UAI) for these problems is presented. The current COSMIC TRIA3 element is shown to have excellent comparison with both the theoretical solutions and also those from the two commercial versions of NASTRAN with which it is compared.