14

Solid
Elements

14–1
Chapter 14: SOLID ELEMENTS 14–2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
§14.1. INTRODUCTION 14–3
§14.2. GEOMETRICAL CONFIGURATIONS 14–3
§14.3. ISOPARAMETRIC DEFINITION 14–4
§14.3.1. Geometry description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14–5
§14.3.2. Displacement Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . 14–5
§14.4. THE STIFFNESS MATRIX 14–6
§14.4.1. The Strain-Displacement Equations . . . . . . . . . . 14–6
§14.4.2. The Constitutive Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . 14–6
§14.4.3. The Stiffness Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14–7
§14.5. THE MASS MATRIX 14–8

14–2
14–3 §14.2 GEOMETRICAL CONFIGURATIONS

§14.1. INTRODUCTION

Solid elements are three-dimensional finite elements that can model solid bodies and structures
without any a priori geometric simplification.
Finite element models of this type have the advantage of directness. Geometric and constitutive
assumptions required to effect dimensionality reduction, for example to planar or axisymmetric
behavior, are avoided. Boundary conditions can be more realistically treated. Another attractive
feature is that the finite element mesh visually looks like the physical system.
This directness does not come for free. It is paid in terms of modeling, mesh preparation, computing
and postprocessing effort. To keep these within reasonable limits it may be necessary to use coarser
meshes than with two dimensional models, which in turn may degrade accuracy. Thus finite element
users should not automatically look upon solid elements as snake oil. Its use should be restricted to
problems and analyses stages, such as verification, where the generality and flexibility of full 3D
models is warranted.
The present Chapter describes general attributes of solid elements for linear elastostatic problems.

4
8
4 5 7
6
5 6
1 4
3 1
3
1
3 2
2 2

Figure 14.1. The three standard solid element geometries:

tetrahedron (left), wedge (center) and brick (right).
Only elements with corner nodes are shown.

Bricks Wedges Tetrahedra

Figure 14.2. Regular 3D meshes can be built with cube-like

repeating mesh units built with bricks, wedges or tetrahedra.

14–3
Chapter 14: SOLID ELEMENTS 14–4

7 6

4 5

3 4

1 3
1
2
2
Pyramid Wrick

Figure 14.3. Two nonstandard solid element geometries: pyramid

and wrick [w(edge)+(b)rick]. Four faces meet at
corners 5 and 7, leading to a singular metric.

§14.2. GEOMETRICAL CONFIGURATIONS

Two dimensional (2D) finite elements have two standard geometries: quadrilateral and triangle.
All other geometric configurations, such as polygons with five or more sides, are classified as
nonstandard or special.
Three dimensional (3D) finite elements offer more variety. There are three standard geometries: the
tetrahedron, the wedge, and the hexahedron or “brick”. These have 4, 6 and 8 corners, respectively,
with three faces meeting at each corner. See Figure 14.1. These elements can be used to build
topologically regular meshes as illustrated in Figure 14.2.
There are two nonstandard geometries that deserve consideration as they are ocassionally useful
to complete generated 3D meshes: the pyramid and the wrick. (The latter term is a contraction of
“wedge” and “brick”) These have 5 and 7 corners, respectively. See Figure 14.3. One of the corners
(the last numbered one in the Figure) is special in that four faces meet, which leads to a singular
metric there. This singularity disqualifies these elements for use in stress analysis in highly stressed
regions. However they may be acceptable away from such regions, and in vibration analysis.
Both standard and nonstandard elements can be refined with additional nodes. For example, Figure
14.4 shows the elements of Figures 14.1 and 14.3 equipped with midside nodes. These refined
elements are of interest for more accurate stress analysis. Of course, the midside nodes may be
moved away from the midpoints to fit curved geometries better.

§14.3. ISOPARAMETRIC DEFINITION

We restrict consideration here to isoparametric solid elements with three translational degrees of
freedom (DOF) per node. Much of the development of such elements can be carried out assuming
an arbitrary number of nodes n. In fact a general “template module” can be written to form the
element stiffness matrix and mass matrix.
Nodal quantities will be identified by the node subscript. Thus {xi , yi , z i } denote the node coordi-
nates of the i th node, while {u xi , u yi , u zi } are the nodal displacement DOFs. The shape function
for the i th node is denoted by Ni . These are expressed in term of natural coordinates which vary

14–4
14–5 §14.3 ISOPARAMETRIC DEFINITION

4
8
4 5 7
6
5 6
1 4
3 1
3
1
3 2
2 2

7 6

4 5

3 4

1 3
1
2
2

Figure 14.4. Solid elements refined with midside nodes. Although shown
at midpoints for simplicity, in practice they can be placed
away from such locations to fit curved geometries better.

from element to element. Throughout this Chapter, however, the shape functions are left in generic
form.
§14.3.1. Geometry description
Following the isoparametric notation introduced by Felippa and Clough1 the element geometry is
described by
     N1 
1 1 1 ... 1
 x   x1 x2 . . . xn   N2 
 =  . (14.1)
y y1 y2 . . . yn  ... 
z z1 z2 . . . zn Nn
The four rows of this matrix relation express the completeness conditions


n 
n 
n 
n
1= Ni , x= x i Ni , y= yi Ni , z= z i Ni , (14.2)
i=1 i=1 i=1 i=1

which the shape functions must identically satisfy.

1 C. A. Felippa and R. W. Clough, The Finite Element Method in Solid Mechanics, in Numerical Solution of Field Problems
in Continuum Physics, ed. by G. Birkhoff and R. S. Varga, SIAM–AMS Proceedings II, American Mathematical Society,
Providence, R.I., 1969, pp. 210–252

14–5
Chapter 14: SOLID ELEMENTS 14–6

§14.3.2. Displacement Interpolation

The displacement interpolation is
N 


1
ux u x1 u x2 . . . u xn  N2 
uy = u y1 u y2 . . . u yn  . . (14.3)
 . 
uz u z1 u z2 . . . u zn .
Nn
The three rows of this matrix relation express the interpolation conditions


n 
n 
n
ux = u xi Ni , uy = u yi Ni , uz = u zi Ni . (14.4)
i=1 i=1 i=1

The identical structure of the geometry definition (14.1) and displacement interpolation (14.3)
characterizes an isoparametric element (iso=same).
For future development the element node displacements of (14.3) are collected in the 3n column
vector u which is configured with the 3 components grouped node by node:
uT = [ u x1 u y1 u z1 u x2 . . . u xn u yn u zn ] (14.5)

§14.4. THE STIFFNESS MATRIX

For convenience in the stiffness matrix formulation the six components of the strains and stresses
are grouped as follows to form into 6-component vectors:
   
ex x σx x
 e yy   σ yy 
   
 ezz  σ 
e= , σ =  zz  . (14.6)
 2ex y   σx y 
   
2e yz σ yz
2ezx σzx

§14.4.1. The Strain-Displacement Equations

The strains are related to the element node displacements by the 6 × 3n strain-displacement matrix:
 ∂u x 
 
 ∂x   N x1  u x1
 ∂u y  0 0 . . . N xn 0 0  u y1 
 ∂   0 N 0 . . . 0 N 0   
 x   y1 yn
 u z1 
 ∂u z  Nz1 . . . Nzn   .. 

e= = 0 0 0 0
 . 
 ∂z 
  N y1 N x1 0 . . . N N 0   = Bu, (14.7)
 ∂u  yn xn
 u xn 
 y + ∂u x   0 Nz1 N y1 . . . 0 N yn N xn  
 ∂x 
∂y  u 
 Nz1 0 N x1 . . . Nzn 0 N xn yn
.. u zn
.
in which N xi N yi and Nzi denote the derivatives of shape function Ni with respect to x, y and z,
respectively.

14–6
14–7 §14.4 THE STIFFNESS MATRIX

§14.4.2. The Constitutive Equations

We restrict attention to linear elastostatic without initial stresses. For a general anisotropic matrerial
the stress-strain equations can be presented as

    
σx x E 11 E 12 E 13 E 14 E 15 E 16 ex x
σ
 yy   E 22 E 23 E 24 E 25 E 26   e yy 
    
σ   E 33 E 34 E 35 E 36   ezz 
σ =  zz  =    = Ee. (14.8)
 σx y   E 44 E 45 E 46   2ex y 
    
σ yz E 55 E 56 2e yz
σzx symm E 66 2ezx

The stress-strain matrix E will be assumed to be constant over the element. This matrix can
be simplified in the case of isotropic or orthotropic material. However for the actual element
implementation those simplifications are not considered here.

§14.4.3. The Stiffness Matrix

The element stiffness matrix is formally given by the volume integral


K= BT EB d V (14.9)
V

where the integral is taken over the element volume.

The usual treatment of (14.9) consists of evaluating the integral by numerical Gauss quadrature
with p points:

p
K= wk Jk BkT EBk (14.10)
k=1

Here k is the integration point index; wk is the integration weight, Bk is the stress-displacement
matrix and Jk is the Jacobian determinant (introduced later), respectively, evaluated at the integration
point. Integration rules are discussed in a section below.

REMARK 14.1
The fast computation of the matrix product BT EB is important in the efficient implementation of elements,
because this evaluation is repeated at each integration point. For each node point pair i, j define

N 0 0
 N 0 0

xi xj
 0 N yi 0   0 Ny j 0 
 0 Nzi   0 Nz j 
Bi =  , Bj =  ,
0 0
 N yi i, j = 1, . . . n. (14.11)
N xi 0   Ny j Nx j 0 
   
0 Nzi N yi 0 Nz j N yi
Nzi 0 N xi Nz j 0 Nx j

14–7
Chapter 14: SOLID ELEMENTS 14–8

Then the 3 × 3 block Q ji = BTj EBi = QiTj is efficiently computed as

B E +B E +B E B yi E 12 + Bxi E 14 + Bzi E 15 Bzi E 13 + B yi E 15 + Bxi E 16

xi 11 yi 14 zi 16
 xi 12
B E + B E
yi 24 + B zi E 26 B yi E 22 + Bxi E 24 + Bzi E 25 Bzi E 23 + B yi E 25 + Bxi E 26 
 Bxi E 13 + B yi E 34 + Bzi E 36 B yi E 23 + Bxi E 34 + Bzi E 35 Bzi E 33 + B yi E 35 + Bxi E 36 
C=
 Bxi E 14 + B yi E 44 + Bzi E 46

B yi E 24 + Bxi E 44 + Bzi E 45 Bzi E 34 + B yi E 45 + Bxi E 46 
 
Bxi E 15 + B yi E 45 + Bzi E 56 B yi E 25 + Bxi E 45 + Bzi E 55 Bzi E 35 + B yi E 55 + Bxi E 56 (14.12)
Bxi E 16 + B yi E 46 + Bzi E 66 B yi E 26 + Bxi E 46 + Bzi E 56 Bzi E 36 + B yi E 56 + Bxi E 66

Bx j C11 + B y j C41 + Bz j C61 Bx j C12 + B y j C42 + Bz j C62 Bx j C13 + B y j C43 + Bz j C63

Qi j = B y j C21 + Bxi C41 + Bz j C51 B y j C22 + Bxi C42 + Bz j C52 B y j C23 + Bxi C43 + Bz j C53
Bz j C31 + B y j C51 + Bx j C61 Bz j C32 + B y j C52 + Bx j C62 Bz j C33 + B y j C53 + Bx j C63

The computation of each Qi j block requires 54 + 27 = 81 multiplications. (The slight savings for i = j are
not worth the coding complications.) For an element with n nodes and p integration points, pn(n + 1)/2 are
computed since Q ji = QiTj , and the total effort associated with BT EE is approximately 40 pn 2 multiplications.
This computation, plus associated indexing to access the K entries, dominates the total effort. As an example:
an 8-node brick integrated with a 2 × 2 × 2 rule would require roughly 20,000 multiplications whereas a
20-node brick integrated by a 3 × 3 × 3 would consume 432,000; thus the formation time ratio would be 22:1.
For an isotropic material two thirds of the stress-strain coefficients in E are zero. Explicit recognition of that
fact would cut the computation of Qi j to 15 + 21 = 36 multiplications, roughly a 2:1 speedup. This would
complicate the program logic, however, because branching to this special case would be needed, and it is not
clear whether the complication is likely to be worth the special effort. In any event, the “unrolled” evaluation
of the Qi j should be preferred to general matrix multiplication.

§14.5. THE MASS MATRIX

For deriving the consistent mass matrix the displacement interpolation (14.10) is rearranged as

ux N1 0 0 ... Nn 0 0
uy = 0 N1 0 ... 0 Nn 0 u = Nu. (14.13)
uz 0 0 N1 ... 0 0 Nn

If the mass density of the material is ρ, assumed constant over the element, the consistent mass
matrix is 
MC = ρNNT , d V (14.14)
V

This is also integrated by a Gauss quadrature rule. The sparsity of N is easily acconted for when
forming the 3 × 3 i, j blocks of MC .
Transformation of MC to a lumped mass matrix M L can be done through a variety of techniques.
A good coverage is given in the book by Cook et al.2 .

2 R. D. Cook, D. S. Malkus and M. E. Plesha, Concepts and Application of Finite Element Methods, 3rd ed., Wiley, New
York, 1989

14–8