A new penalty function element for thin shell analysis

In this paper a triangular thin shell element is presented where C1 continuity is introduced by means of the penalty function technique. The displacement field has complete cubic polynomials for each component. The introduced constraint condition is the continuity of normal slopes of the transverse displacements along interelement boundaries. Classical thin shell theory for small deformations is applied. Several analyses of thin plates and shells are performed, including a large problem of practical interest, to study the effect of an increasing penalty factor. The accuracy of the results is estimated and compared to the actually occurred error. In the conclusions a recommended value for the penalty factor is given.