The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

4-Node Axisymmetric Element Based Upon the Hellinger-Reissner Functional

Weissman, Shmuel L.; Taylor, Robert L.

UCB/SEMM-1988/18, Dept. of Civil Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1988-10, 23 pages

The Hellinger-Reissner functional is used to formulate axisymmetric elements of the correct rank using seven and eight parameter stress fields. The resulting elements exhibit excellent performance in bending problems and at the nearly incompressible limit. The stress field is developed in conjunction with an orthogonal projection so that the resulting stiffness matrix requires only block diagonal inversion. Several numerical examples are given.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/SEMM/SEMM-88-18.pdf (10 MB)