Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.

254 (2013) 170–180

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Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cma

A hierarchic family of isogeometric shell finite elements

R. Echter ⇑, B. Oesterle, M. Bischoff
Institute of Structural Mechanics, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 7, D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A hierarchic family of isogeometric shell finite elements based on NURBS shape functions is presented. In
Received 10 August 2012 contrast to classical shell finite element formulations, inter-element continuity of at least C 1 enables a
Accepted 26 October 2012 unique and continuous representation of the surface normal within one NURBS patch. This does not only
Available online 6 November 2012
facilitate formulation of Kirchhoff–Love type shell models, for which the standard Galerkin weak form has
a variational index of 2, but it also offers significant advantages for shear deformable (Reissner–Mindlin
Keywords: type) shells and higher order shell models. For a 5-parameter shell formulation with Reissner–Mindlin
Isogeometric shell elements
kinematics a hierarchic difference vector which accounts for shear deformations is superimposed onto
Hierarchic difference vector
Locking
the rotated Kirchhoff–Love type director of the deformed configuration. This split into bending and shear
Hierarchic shell models deformations in the shell kinematics results in an element formulation which is free from transverse shear
locking without the need to apply further remedies like reduced integration, assumed natural strains or
mixed finite element formulations. The third member of the hierarchy is a 7-parameter model including
thickness change and allowing for application of unmodified three-dimensional constitutive laws. The
phenomenon of curvature thickness locking, coming along with this kinematic extension, again is auto-
matically avoided by the hierarchic difference vector concept without any further treatment. Membrane
locking and in-plane shear locking are removed by two different approaches: firstly elimination via
the Discrete Strain Gap (DSG) method and secondly removal of parasitic membrane strains using a
hybrid-mixed method based on the Hellinger–Reissner variational principle. The hierarchic kinematic
structure of the three different shell formulations allows a straightforward combination of these elements
within one mesh and is thus the ideal basis for a model adaptive approach.
Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Shell structures occur in various forms in both nature and
technology. Because of their high ratio of load-carrying capacity
to self-weight shells are frequently used in engineering applica-
tions for instance in automotive and aerospace industry and in civil
engineering. Two-dimensional, surface-based theories for this type
of thin-walled structures are either based on derivations from
three-dimensional non-polar continuum mechanics or directly
describe the kinematics of a so-called Cosserat surface based on
micropolar theory [22]. The hierarchic family of isogeometric shell
finite elements presented in this paper is based on a reduction of
the three-dimensional continuum via semi-discretization in thick-
ness direction.
The isogeometric approach, proposed by Hughes and co-work-
ers in 2005 [1], has received a great deal of attention in the recent
past in many different fields of structural and fluid mechanics as
well as electromagnetics [1,2]. In the present study it serves as
basis for the development of a hierarchic family of NURBS-based
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: echter@ibb.uni-stuttgart.de (R. Echter), oesterle@ibb.uni-stu
ttgart.de (B. Oesterle), bischoff@ibb.uni-stuttgart.de (M. Bischoff).
shell finite elements. The hierarchy offers the possibility to enrich
(or impoverish) the kinematics of the shell with transverse shear
deformations or higher order displacement fields in thickness
direction, if desired. Moreover, it naturally avoids certain locking
phenomena without additional treatment or ‘tricks’. The most
important aspect in the context of the present study is inter-
element continuity of up to C p1 within NURBS patches, with p
defining the degree of the corresponding basis functions, cf. [8,9].
The weak form of shell element formulations based on
Reissner–Mindlin kinematics [5] has a variational index of 1 and
thus requires only C 0 -continuity for consistency. Thus, it can easily
be discretized with conventional Lagrange shape functions. Consis-
tent Kirchhoff–Love type shell elements, for which C 1 -continuity is
needed, as the corresponding variational index is 2, are hard to
construct using a standard Lagrange basis. Recently, several new
C 1 -continuous finite element formulations based on Love’s classi-
cal shell theory ([6,7]) have been proposed, either based on subdi-
vision surfaces or NURBS shape functions, [3,11–14], exploiting
higher continuity of those concepts.
It is a well known fact that application of lower order finite ele-
ments, particularly to constrained problems such as thin plates and
shells or incompressible material behavior, may dramatically
reduce accuracy of computational results due to locking. Also

0045-7825/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2012.10.018
 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180 171

NURBS-based finite elements exhibit significant locking effects The director A3 , defined by the normalized cross product of the in-
[16–19]. The problem may be alleviated by increasing the polyno- plane covariant base vectors Aa ,
mial order, however this does not completely solve the problem:
A1  A2
even higher order elements are not locking-free and the accuracy A3 ¼ ð3Þ
kA1  A2 k
crucially depends on a critical parameter (slenderness or bulk
modulus). Moreover, stress oscillations may occur even in cases completes the three-dimensional tangent space of the shell body.
@X
where the displacements are well approximated. Regardless of Note that A3 ¼ @h3.

the polynomial order NURBS finite elements exhibit improved The position vector x to an arbitrary material point of the shell
coarse mesh accuracy compared to standard Lagrange elements body in the deformed configuration is defined analogously,
due to the higher inter-element continuity.      
x h1 ; h2 ; h3 ¼ r h1 ; h2 þ h3 a3 h1 ; h2 : ð4Þ
The present study focuses on presenting a family of hierarchic
3-, 5-, and 7-parameter NURBS-based shell finite element formula-
tions which avoid transverse shear locking and curvature thickness 2.1. Kirchhoff–Love shell model (3-parameter formulation)
locking by application of a hierarchic difference vector concept.
The remaining geometric locking phenomena are avoided via the Kirchhoff–Love models which neglect both shear deformations
Discrete Strain Gap (DSG) concept [18,23–25] or, alternatively, by and extensibility in thickness direction are well suited for thin shell
a hybrid-mixed element formulation based on a two-field analysis. As the director remains normal to the mid-surface, deforma-
Hellinger–Reissner principle [26–29]. tion of the shell body can be described by the mid-surface displace-
For simplicity, presentation of the proposed discretization con- ment field only. One decisive advantage with respect to other shell
cept is restricted to geometrically linear problems. Extension to models is the fact that no shear locking occurs, because transverse
non-linearity is straightforward for the 3-parameter model and shear is neglected. On the other hand, consistently ensuring C 1 -conti-
the 7-parameter model. For the Reissner–Mindlin type 5-parameter nuity is challenging when standard finite element formulations are
formulation additional considerations are necessary in order to applied. This demand can naturally be satisfied with higher continuity
retain the inextensibility condition. One obvious possibility is to B-spline and NURBS discretizations or subdivision techniques.
use hierarchic rotations rather than a hierarchic difference vector. Assuming linear kinematics the director a3 of the deformed con-
figuration as shown in Fig. 2 may be defined by
2. Differential geometry and shell kinematics
a3 ¼ A3 þ U  A3 : ð5Þ
Starting point for the formulation is the parametrization of the
The vector U  A3 equals the difference between the director in the
three-dimensional shell body with a convective curvilinear coordi-
undeformed configuration A3 and the rotated director in the current
nate system. The in-plane coordinates are denoted by ha , the shell
position a3 . A linearized rotation of the director A3 can be described
thickness direction is defined by h3 . Points on the mid-surface are
by a rotation vector U as a function of the covariant base vectors Aa
specified by h3 ¼ 0. As usual, Greek indices take on values 1 or 2,
and related rotation angles ua
Latin indices run from 1 to 3. Capital letters refer to quantities of
the reference configuration, small letters are used for the current U ¼ u1 A1 þ u2 A2 : ð6Þ
configuration (Fig. 1). For dimensional reduction, the geometry
The rotation angles ua are equal to
description, i.e. position vectors of the undeformed configuration
X to arbitrary material points of the shell body are defined as linear 1 1
functions of h3 . Both the position vector to a point on the shell u1 ¼ ða2  A2 Þ  A3 ¼ v;2  A3 ;
kA1  A2 k kA1  A2 k
mid-surface R and the director A3 are defined as functions of the ð7Þ
1 1
in-plane coordinates ha only u2 ¼  ða1  A1 Þ  A3 ¼  v ;1  A3 ;
kA1  A2 k kA1  A2 k
     
X h1 ; h2 ; h3 ¼ R h1 ; h2 þ h3 A3 h1 ; h2 : ð1Þ
with v ;a representing the partial derivatives of the mid-surface
Partial derivation of X with respect to the in-plane convective coor- displacement field of the shell body and aa the base vectors of the
dinates provides the covariant base vectors of the mid-surface current configuration.
The displacement field u of any arbitrary point in the shell body
@X
Aa ¼ j 3 ¼ R ;a : ð2Þ is obtained from the difference of the position vectors of the
@ha h ¼0

reference configuration

θ3 current configuration

θ3
A3
A1 A2 u
a3
v
a2
a1
θ1
θ2 x
θ2
X R r
θ1
e3

e2
e1

Fig. 1. Undeformed and deformed configuration of shell body.

172 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180

current configuration

reference configuration Φ × A3
A3
A3 a3

A1 A2
v
A1 A2

θ3 = 0 θ3 = 0
r
R
e3

e2
e1

Fig. 2. Reference and current configuration (linearized) – 3-parameter model.

deformed and undeformed configuration. For the 3-parameter 2.2. Reissner–Mindlin shell model (5-parameter formulation)
model with Kirchhoff–Love kinematics this leads to
The 5-parameter shell model presented herein makes use of the
u3p ¼ x  X ¼ r þ h3 a3  R  h3 A3 ¼ v þ h3 ða3  A3 Þ
concept of a hierarchic difference vector w which is added to the ro-
¼ v þ h3 ðU  A3 Þ: ð8Þ tated director A3 þ U  A3 of the current configuration in order to
account for shear deformations (Fig. 3). This kind of split into con-
From Eq. (8) the following partial derivatives of the displacement
tributions from bending and transverse shear to the director update
field with respect to the convective coordinates hi are obtained
has already been described in the text book by Basßar and Krätzig
3 [20] (page 109) albeit not in the context of finite elements but solely
;a ¼ v ;a þ h ðU;a  A3 þ U  A3;a Þ;
u3p
ð9Þ for the purpose to easily extract a classical Kirchhoff-Love model
u3p
;3 ¼ a3  A3 ¼ U  A3 : from the more general shear deformation theory. Later, it has been
The covariant base vectors of the shell body are given by applied by Long et al. [14] in the context of subdivision surfaces.
Existing 5-parameter models either use a rotation tensor or im-
@X pose a difference vector on the director of the undeformed configu-
Ga ¼ ¼ R;a þ h3 A3;a ¼ Aa þ h3 A3;a ;
@ha ration A3 . In the present approach the director a3 is first computed
ð10Þ
@X from Eq. (5) followed by superposition of w
G3 ¼ 3 ¼ A3 :
@h
a3 ¼ A3 þ U  A3 þw: ð14Þ
The linearized three-dimensional Green–Lagrange strain tensor in
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
Kirchhoff—Love
curvilinear coordinates is defined by
The hierarchic difference vector w is a function of the in-plane con-
e ¼ eij Gi  Gj ; ð11Þ vective coordinates ha only. In the geometrically linear case inex-
tensibility of the director can be easily constructed by expressing
with the components of w with respect to the covariant base vectors of
1  the mid-surface
eij ¼ u;i  Gj þ u;j  Gi : ð12Þ
2 w ¼ w1 A1 þ w2 A2 : ð15Þ
For the 3-parameter Kirchhoff–Love model the individual compo- For shell thickness t ! 0 the solution asymptotically converges
nents are towards the Kirchhoff–Love shell formulation [14]. Removal of w
0 1
from the formulation directly reproduces the 3-parameter Kirch-
e ¼ v ;1  A1 þ h @v;1  A3;1 þ U;1  A3  A1 þ U  A3;1  A1 C
3p
11
3B
A;
hoff–Love model.
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} The hierarchic difference vector w contributes additional terms
¼0
0 1 to the expressions for the partial derivatives of the displacement
field (cf. Eq. (9) for the 3-parameter formulation),
3B C
2e3p
12 ¼ v ;1  A2 þ v ;2  A1 þ h @v ;1  A3;2 þ U;1  A3  A2 þ U  A3;1  A2 A 3
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} u5p 3p
;a ¼ u;a þ h w;a ;
¼0 ð16Þ
0 1 u5p 3p
;3 ¼ u;3 þ w:
B C
þ h3 @v ;2  A3;1 þ U;2  A3  A1 þ U  A3;2  A1 A; The coefficients of the Green-Lagrange strain tensor may now
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
¼0
be formulated according to Eqs. (10), (13), (15) and (16). As usual
0 1 in shell models, quadratic contributions in h3 are dropped. For
3B C the transverse shear strain coefficients ea3 only the constant com-
e3p
22 ¼ v ;2  A2 þ h @v ;2  A3;2 þ U;2  A3  A2 þ U  A3;2  A2 A; ponents w  Aa are non-zero
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
¼0
3p e5p 3p 3
11 ¼ e11 þ h ðw;1  A1 Þ;
e ¼ 0:
i3
ð13Þ 2e5p 3p 3
12 ¼ 2e12 þ h ðw;1  A2 þ w;2  A1 Þ;
The constant part of eab represents the membrane strains, the
linear part corresponds to the change in curvature, i.e. bending. e5p 3p 3
22 ¼ e22 þ h ðw;2  A2 Þ;
 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180 173

Φ × A3 A3 + Φ × A3 w Φ × A3
w A3 + Φ × A3
A3 A3
a3 a3

A1 A2 A1 A2

θ3 = 0 θ3 = 0

Fig. 3. Deformed configuration (linearized) – 5-parameter model. Fig. 4. Deformed configuration (linearized) – 7-parameter model.

0 1
5p B C
2e13 ¼ v ;1  A3 þ U  A3  A1 þw  A1 þ h3 @U;1  A3  A3 þw  A3;1 þ w;1  A3 A        2  
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} x h1 ; h2 ; h3 ¼ r h1 ; h2 þ h3 a3 h1 ; h2 þ h3 w h1 ; h2 : ð19Þ
¼0 ¼0 ¼0
0 1
In Eq. (19) the director of the deformed configuration a3 has the
3B C same structure as in the 5-parameter formulation
þ h @U  A3  A3;1 þ U  A3;1  A3 A ¼ w  A1 ; ð17Þ
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
¼0 a3 ¼ A3 þ U  A3 þw: ð20Þ
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}
Kirchhoff—Love
2e5p
23 ¼ w  A2 ;
The displacement field u for the 7-parameter model accounting
5p for transverse shear and thickness change via w and additionally
e ¼ 0:
33  and its corre-
enabling linear transverse normal strains with w
This formulation is intrinsically free from shear locking, because sponding partial derivatives with respect to the convective coordi-
satisfaction of the corresponding constraint, namely vanishing nates hi can be formulated as
transverse shear strains in case of pure bending, is trivial: w ¼ 0.  2
In standard shell finite element formulations, this condition also u ¼ x7p  X ¼ r þ h3 a3 þ h3 w  R  h3 A3
involves derivatives of the mid-surface displacements and may
 2
¼ v þ h3 ðA3 þ U  A3 þ wÞ þ h3 ðwA  3 Þ  h3 ðA3 Þ
not be fulfilled if the same shape functions are used for v and a  2
(non-hierarchic) difference vector w or rotations, respectively. ¼ v þ h3 ðU  A3 þ wÞ þ h3 ðwA  3 Þ;
 2
u;a ¼ v ;a þ h ðU;a  A3 þ U  A3;a þ w;a Þ þ h3 ðw;a A3 þ wA3;a Þ;
3
2.3. Three-dimensional shell model (7-parameter formulation)
u;3 ¼ U  A3 þ w þ 2h3 ðwA
 3 Þ:
The previously presented shell models with 3 or 5 parameters ð21Þ
do not allow for changes in thickness direction during the defor-
From Eqs. (10), (13), (17), (18) and (21), again neglecting qua-
mation process and neglect transverse normal stresses. This
dratic and higher-order contributions in h3 , the components of
assumption requires modifications of the material law. A decisive
the Green–Lagrange strain tensor for the 7-parameter shell are ob-
advantage of higher-order shell models with at least 7 degrees of
tained as
freedom per node is the application of complete three-dimensional
constitutive laws. Thus, every kinematic variable is related to a cor-
e7p 3p 3
11 ¼ e11 þ h ðw;1  A1 Þ;
responding stress resultant via the material law. The 7-parameter 7p 3p
formulation presented in the following is a hierarchic extension 2e12 ¼ 2e12 þ h3 ðw;1  A2 þ w;2  A1 Þ;
of the 5-parameter model from the previous section. The hierarchic e7p 3p 3
22 ¼ e22 þ h ðw;2  A2 Þ;
difference vector w is equipped with a 3rd independent compo- 7p
ð22Þ
2e13 ¼ w  A1 þ h3 ðw;1  A3 þ w  A3;1 þ 2wA
 3  A1 Þ;
nent, describing the thickness change (extension or shortening of
7p 3
the rotated director) (Fig. 4). In contrast to the 5-parameter model 2e23 ¼ w  A2 þ h ðw;2  A3 þ w  A3;2 þ 2wA
 3  A2 Þ;
the components refer to a Cartesian frame, because it is simpler e7p ¼ w  A 3 þ h3
ð2 
wA3  A 3 Þ:
33

w ¼ wj  ej :
Alternatively, w might as well be expressed in terms of Ai . This is
particularly desirable to be able to switch on or off thickness change
in a model-adaptive concept.
For an asymptotically correct three-dimensional shell formula-
tion a linear distribution of transverse normal strains in h3 is
needed [10]. Otherwise, so-called Poisson thickness locking leads
to artificial transverse normal stresses. Unlike other locking effects,
this phenomenon does not diminish with mesh refinement, mean-
ing that it is not really a ‘locking’ phenomenon but really a defect in
the mathematical shell formulation. Retaining a pure displacement
formulation, the linear strain distribution is obtained here by add-
ing a 7th displacement degree of freedom w  which introduces a
quadratic distribution in h3 of the transverse displacements
ðh3 Þ2 w
 ¼ ðh3 Þ2 w
  A3 . Alternatively, a linear strain component may
be added directly via the Enhanced Assumed Strain (EAS) method
([30,31])
ð18Þ
Like in the Reissner–Mindlin type model described before, the
three-dimensional shell finite elements resulting from Eqs. (22)
are free from transverse shear locking. Moreover, the hierarchic
concept also eliminates so-called curvature thickness locking,
otherwise occurring in 3d-shell finite elements, a priori.
3. Material law
For the numerical experiments in this study, a linear elastic, iso-
tropic material law is utilized. The coefficients
 
C ijkl ¼ kGij Gkl þ l Gik Gjl þ Gil Gkj ð23Þ
of the three-dimensional, fourth order elasticity tensor are given
with respect to curvilinear coordinates. The Lamé constants k and
l may be expressed in terms of Young’s Modulus E and Poisson’s ra-
tio m as
174 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180

mE E where Bi;p and C j;q are B-spline basis functions of order p and q,
k¼ ; l¼ : ð24Þ
ð1 þ mÞð1  2mÞ 2ð 1 þ m Þ
The 7-parameter formulation allows a direct application of the
fully three-dimensional elasticity equations whereas for the
5-parameter Reissner–Mindlin shell model the zero transverse
normal stress condition (r33 ¼ 0) requires elimination of e33 by sta-
tic condensation. In addition, for the Kirchhoff-Love formulations
the equations involving transverse shear strains and stresses are
removed from Eq. (23). For post processing of transverse shear
stresses, the equilibrium equations are used in a 3-parameter
formulation.
4. NURBS-based finite elements
The finite element discretization presented in the following
makes use of NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) as shape
functions. In general the NURBS basis is non-interpolatory. Fig. 5
shows a spherical shell with opening along with a control mesh
consisting of four biquadratic elements. The control points
(turquoise spheres) are the locations where the degrees of freedom
in the discrete model are defined.
4.1. B-spline and NURBS basis
For details on computation of NURBS basis functions Bi;p ðnÞ of
order p, e.g. using the Cox-de Boor formulae, the reader is referred
to the pertinent literature ([2,8]). A one-dimensional NURBS basis
within one patch is defined by n þ p þ 1 parametric coordinates
ni defining the knots which are assembled in a knot vector N. p is
the polynomial degree and n equals the number of B-spline basis
functions. Application of open knot vectors with p þ 1 identical
knots at either end of the vector is the standard in CAD and results
in C 0 -continuous basis functions at patch corners which interpo-
late the control mesh.
NURBS are a generalization of the B-spline basis which, for the
one-dimensional case is defined as
Bi;p ðnÞwi
Ni;p ðnÞ ¼ Pn : ð25Þ
j¼0 Bj;p ðnÞwj
The weights wi are homogenous coordinates associated with each
control point. If all weights are equal, nonrational B-splines are
obtained.
B-spline basis functions for surface and volume description may
most conveniently be computed by a tensor product scheme from
the one-dimensional basis. The two-dimensional NURBS basis
functions required within this paper for the modeling of shells
are given by
Bi;p ðnÞC j;q ðgÞwi;j
Np;q
i;j ðn; gÞ ¼
Pm Pn ; ð26Þ
k¼0 l¼0 Bk;p ðnÞC l;q ðgÞwk;l
respectively.
NURBS and B-spline bases constitute a partition of unity and
possess compact support. Computation of element stiffness matri-
ces and assembly of the global stiffness matrix are identical to the
procedures of conventional finite elements. For numerical integra-
tion Gauss quadrature is used. Although less expensive integration
procedures for maximum inter-element continuity B-spline dis-
cretizations exist [21], each NURBS shell finite element is fully
integrated with ðp þ 1Þðq þ 1Þ Gauss points (p and q being the poly-
nomial degree in n and g direction respectively). Inter-element
continuity of up to C p1 for a polynomial degree greater than one
results in Sobolev function spaces of at least H2 . Control of inter-
element continuity and thus smoothness of the solution can be
achieved by knot repetition. Advantages of higher inter-element
continuity for NURBS-based Kirchhoff-Love shell elements have
been investigated in [3,13]. Utilization of smooth subdivision sur-
faces for plate and shell C 1 finite element analyses can be found
in [11,12,14] among others.
4.2. Discrete shell equations
In the following derivations the convective coordinates hj are
associated with the element coordinates n ¼ fn; g; fg, where
n ¼ h1 and g ¼ h2 are the in-plane coordinates and f ¼ h3 indicates
thickness direction. The position vector Rh ðn; gÞ to any material
point on the shell mid-surface and the corresponding covariant
base vectors Aha ðn; gÞ are defined by the finite sum of NURBS ele-
ment basis functions and their derivatives as well as the corre-
sponding control point (CP) coordinates Pi
X
nCP
Rh ðn; gÞ ¼ Ni ðn; gÞPi ;
i¼1
ð27Þ
X
nCP X
nCP
Ah1 ðn; gÞ ¼ Ni;n ðn; gÞPi ; Ah2 ðn; gÞ ¼ Ni;g ðn; gÞPi :
i¼1 i¼1
For the displacement field v ðn; gÞ of the mid-surface the same
shape functions are used as for the geometry discretization thus
defining the position vector rðn; gÞ of the deformed configuration
X
nCP
v h ðn; gÞ ¼ Ni ðn; gÞv i ;
i¼1 ð28Þ
h
r ðn; gÞ ¼ R ðn; gÞ þ v ðn; gÞ:
h h
The discrete shear displacement vector wh ðn; gÞ of the 5-param-
eter Reissner–Mindlin model formulated in convective coordinates
adds two local displacement components to the three global mid-
surface displacement components v i of each control point. For lin-
ear kinematics this retains the original length of the director and
thus naturally realizes the inextensibility constraint

wh ðn; gÞ ¼ wha ðn; gÞ  Aha ðn; gÞ; ð29Þ

with
X
nCP
wha ðn; gÞ ¼ Ni ðn; gÞwia :
i¼1

The discrete coefficients of the contravariant metric tensor re-

quired for computing the coefficients of the discrete three-dimen-
sional elasticity tensor read
 1 n h o1
Gij ðn; g; fÞ ¼ Gij ðn; g; fÞ ¼ Gi ðn; g; fÞ  Ghj ðn; g; fÞ ; ð30Þ

with

Fig. 5. Spherical shell: geometry and control mesh.

Gha ðn; g; fÞ ¼ Aha ðn; gÞ þ fAh3;a ðn; gÞ;
 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180
Gh3 ðn; gÞ ¼ Ah3 ðn; gÞ:
4.3. Finite element technology
The most important locking phenomena in the context of shells
are geometric locking effects which deteriorate accuracy as thick-
ness approaches zero. For the most general case of a three-dimen-
sional shell these are transverse shear locking, curvature thickness
locking and membrane locking. With the hierarchic concept de-
scribed above, the first two are intrinsically avoided. To the
authors’ best knowledge this is the only purely displacement-
based finite element formulation where this is true. From the point
of view of finite element technology, the only remaining task is to
avoid membrane locking.
We have realized two different options to avoid membrane
locking. The first one is based on the Discrete Strain Gap (DSG)
Method, the second one is a Hybrid Stress (HS) Method based on
the Hellinger–Reissner two-field functional. Details on the mathe-
matical formulation of those methods will be published in a sepa-
rate paper as the present contribution focuses on the hierarchic
shell concept.
The DSG Method has been developed in [23–25] to avoid geo-
metric locking phenomena in triangular and quadrilateral plate,
shell and solid finite elements. NURBS-based DSG elements have
been presented by Echter and Bischoff [18] for straight Timo-
shenko beam problems. The concept is extended here to avoid
membrane locking and in-plane shear locking for isogeometric
shell elements.
For Lagrange finite elements the collocation points of the DSG
method are element nodes, regardless of the element type and
polynomial order of the shape functions. In the context of B-spline
and NURBS structures the integration of strain components via
DSG has to be collocated at the Greville points of the parametric
patch domain. Due to continuity across inter-element boundaries
within a patch, strain integration in order to compute discrete
strain gaps cannot be carried out on element level but has to be
performed on patch level. This eventually results in coupling of
degrees of freedom which may propagate throughout the entire
patch. Furthermore, as discrete values are not interpolatory in
the case of B-splines and NURBS a linear system of equations has
to be solved to compute the discrete values for interpolation of
DSG strains [18]. The excellent coarse mesh accuracy of isogeo-
metric DSG elements is thus compromised by computational
expense.
As an alternative to the DSG modification of the in-plane strain
components eab a mixed-method based on the two-field Hellinger-
Reissner variational principle with displacement and stress fields
ðu; rÞ may be utilized. The discrete weak form is presented as
follows
Z Z
 3p: 3-parameter formulation (Kirchhoff-Love), cf. Kiendl et al. [3],
h T T 1 T T
dP HR ¼ db  M TC  T  MdX  b  M  T  BdX  d
X X
Z Z Z
 3p-HS: 3-parameter formulation with hybrid stress modifica-
T
þ dd   BT  T  MdX  b þ NT  p
 dX þ
X X @ Xr
The main idea of the procedure with regard to a higher order
and higher continuity NURBS basis is presented in the following
without going too far into details. Similarities of our method with
regard to a proper choice of spaces for the displacements and stres-
ses show up among others in [17] for the corresponding displace-
ment and projected strain fields. The ansatz and test functions for
both field variables are defined on patch level. Given a displace-
ment field of order p and thus maximum inter-element continuity
175
of C p1 the in-plane stress components rab are defined to be one or-
der lower, i.e. p  1. Consequently also the continuity of rab is re-
duced by one and thus gives C p2 . Table 1 illustrates the choice
of the basis for the membrane stress components as a result of a
biquadratic NURBS displacement interpolation with maximum
continuity of C 1 . The variables p and q represent the order of the
basis functions for the in-plane directions h1 and h2 , respectively.
M in Eq. (31) comprises the set of all basis functions for the
stress components rab whereas T represents the transformation
matrix for stress components evaluated at the Gauss points of
the individual element. B is the strain-displacement operator of a
standard displacement formulation defined on patch level. For a
clearer demonstration of the algebraic system of equations in
(31) the following abbreviations are introduced. For more details
on derivation of hybrid stress finite elements see [28,29] among
others
Z Z
H :¼ MT  T  C1  TT  MdX; G :¼ MT  T  BdX;
Z X X
ð32Þ
f :¼ NT  PdXr :
@ Xr
Accounting for both arbitrariness and independence of the test
functions for stress parameters db and nodal displacements dd en-
ables a decomposition of Eq. (31) and with it the following matrix
representation
H G b 0
 ¼ : ð33Þ
GT 0 d f
Elimination of the stress parameters b results in a hybrid-mixed
formulation with only displacement degrees of freedom remaining.
The application of higher-continuity NURBS basis due to the inver-
sion of H, however, destroys the sparse structure in the system of
algebraic equations. Solving the system of Eq. (33) without static
condensation increases the global number of degrees of freedom
on the one hand, but more importantly preserves the band struc-
ture in the system of equations. Doing without static condensation
thus may facilitate a more efficient solution and provides signifi-
cant savings in memory consumption.
5. Numerical examples
For all examples presented in the following we assume linear-
ized kinematics and linear-elastic isotropic material behavior. A
list of the isogeometric shell finite elements is given below. The
underlined versions are the ones which are actually proposed for
practical use, the other ones are included for detailed investigation
of the influence of individual components of the proposed formu-
lation on the pertinent locking phenomena
 3p-DSG: 3-parameter formulation with DSG modification of
membrane part,
NT  PdXr ¼ 0: tion of membrane part,
 5p-stand.: standard isogeometric 5-parameter formulation
(Reissner-Mindlin), i.e. update of the director is accomplished
ð31Þ
with a difference vector added to the undeformed normal,
Table 1
Order of displacement and stress basis.
u r11 r22 r12
1
p(h ) 2 1 2 1
q(h2) 2 2 1 1
176 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180
 5p-hier.: 5-parameter formulation with hierarchic difference
vector as presented herein, i.e. update of the director is accom-
plished with a hierarchic difference vector added to the rotated
normal,
 5p-stand.-DSG: standard 5-parameter formulation with DSG
modification of membrane part,
 5p-hier.-DSG: hierarchic 5-parameter formulation with DSG
modification of membrane part,
 5p-hier.-HS: hierarchic 5-parameter formulation with hybrid
stress modification of membrane part,
 7p-hier.: 7-parameter formulation with hierarchic difference
vector as presented herein,
 7p-hier.-DSG: hierarchic 7-parameter formulation with DSG
modification of membrane part,
 7p-hier.-HS: hierarchic 7-parameter formulation with hybrid
stress modification of membrane part.
The standard Kirchhoff-Love elements (3p) are expected to
yield the same results as the ones presented by Kiendl et al. [3].
The standard Reissner–Mindlin elements (5p-stand.) are compara-
ble to the ones by Benson et al. [4], but they are not identical. One
important difference is the fact, that in [4] the director vectors
(shell normals) are computed approximately by projection of vec-
tors defined at the control points onto the shell surface, whereas in
the present formulation they are constructed exactly from the sur-
face tangent space via Eq. (3) instead of interpolation from the con-
trol points (see Dornisch et al. [15] for an alternative procedure to
obtain exact normals via interpolation).
5.1. Simply supported plate
First, the tendency to transverse shear locking is investigated by
analyzing a simply supported square plate with length
Lx ¼ Ly ¼ L ¼ 10:0 with constant transverse loading qz ¼ 1:0  t 3
and varying slenderness L/t (Fig. 6). The load is scaled with the 3rd
power of the thickness t in order to make the result for the center
deflection independent of t in the thin limit. Young’s modulus and
Poisson’s ratio are equal to 1000.0 and 0.3, respectively. The maxi-
mum displacement at the center of the plate is computed for all shell
models derived in the previous sections and compared to the analyt-
ical Kirchhoff series solution wKz;max which in [32] yields a value of
5 qz L4 12ð1  m2 Þ
wKz;max ¼
384 Et 3
4qz L4 12ð1  m2 Þ
 ð0:68562 þ 0:00025Þ ¼ 0:442892: ð34Þ
p5 Et3
Only the first two terms in the series solution [32] of the max-
imum displacement are considered for sufficiently accurate results.
A discretization of 10 biquadratic NURBS elements in both x- and
y
z L
Fig. 6. Simply supported plate with uniform transverse load.
y-direction with maximum inter-element continuity of C 1 is
employed. A purely displacement-based formulation, with no
additional modification via DSG or hybrid stress method is
used.
The results in Table 2 show that for all three shell models pro-
posed herein the values for the center deflection match the analyt-
ical reference solution in the thin limit, independent of the
slenderness of the structure. The results for the standard 5-param-
eter formulation (5p-stand.), not relying on a hierarchic difference
vector, shows transverse shear locking. As quadratic shape func-
tions are used, the results do not approach zero in the thin limit,
as they do in the case of linear elements. In the thick regime the
expected differences due to transverse shear effects are observed
for the 5-parameter and 7-parameter formulations; with increas-
ing slenderness the hierarchic shear-deformable shell formulations
asymptotically converge to the Kirchhoff solution.
The shear-rigid Kirchhoff–Love shell (3p) is free from spurious
transverse shear contributions by definition. The Reissner–Mindlin
shells (5p-stand., 5p-hier.) allow for transverse shear effects and
are thus in danger of suffering from transverse shear locking. The
numerical results show that this phenomenon is avoided by the
concept of a hierarchic difference vector (5p-hier.) whereas the
standard formulation (5p-stand.) clearly underestimates the center
deflection in the thin limit.
It is interesting to note that the results of the hierarchic 7-
parameter model do not exactly match the – asymptotically correct
– Kirchhoff–Love solution in the thin limit. The reason is that the
zero transverse normal stress condition is only satisfied approxi-
mately in this 3d-formulation. The difference vanishes with mesh
refinement and clearly the formulation is locking-free.
5.2. Cylindrical shell strip
Next, we analyze the quality of the shell formulations for a
cylindrical shell segment which is clamped along the edge x ¼ 0
and subjected to a constant line load at the opposite free edge in
radial direction, as shown in Fig. 7. As the structure is curved,
membrane locking has to be expected if the finite element formu-
lation is not locking-free (from the previous numerical example we
know already that the hierarchic formulation is free from trans-
verse shear locking).
The shell has a radius R ¼ 10:0 and a width of Ly ¼ 1:0. Young’s
modulus and Poisson’s ratio are equal to 1000.0 and 0.0 respec-
tively. The magnitude of the load is equal to qx ¼ 0:1  t 3 . An analyt-
ical solution based on Bernoulli beam theory yields a value of
approximately 0.942 for the radial displacement ux . The domain
is discretized with a structured mesh of 10 elements in h1 -direction
and 1 element in h2 -direction. A NURBS basis of polynomial order 2
with maximum inter-element continuity of C 1 is applied. The effect
of varying slenderness Rt on the numerical results is analyzed for
qz
 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180 177

Table 2 The numerical results for ux of the entire hierarchic family of

Square plate, maximum vertical displacement wz;max .
Slenderness L
t
5 10 100 1000
Shell formulation
3p 0.4423 0.4423 0.4423 0.4423
5p-stand. 0.5845 0.4947 0.4367 0.3905
5p-hier. 0.5839 0.4938 0.4431 0.4423
7p-hier. 0.5837 0.4936 0.4429 0.4421
both the Reissner–Mindlin (5p) and Kirchhoff–Love (3p) shell
models.
Fig. 8 compares the results obtained with the Kirchhoff-Love
shell elements (3p, 3p-DSG) to the reference solution. The purely
displacement-based Kirchhoff–Love shell (3p) exhibits significant
membrane locking. With increasing slenderness Rt the radial dis-
placement ux tends to zero. Already for a moderately thin shell
with Rt ¼ 100 spurious membrane strains lead to a significant
underestimation of the tip displacement by approximately 30%.
Modification of the membrane strain components eab with the
DSG method completely removes the undesired parasitic mem-
brane strain contributions and results in a locking-free shell for-
mulation (3p-DSG) which matches the analytical Bernoulli beam
solution very well. Similar results are obtained with the hybrid-
mixed Kirchhoff–Love shell (3p-HS).
For the 5-parameter Reissner–Mindlin shell four different for-
mulations are compared in Fig. 9. The formulation using a hierar-
chic difference vector (5p-hier.), which is known from the
previous experiment to be free from transverse shear locking, pro-
vides poor results because of membrane locking. In fact, the curve
is practically identical to the one of the displacement-based Kirch-
hoff–Love shell (3p). The standard formulation (5p-stand.) is addi-
tionally affected by transverse shear locking. The small differences
in the displacements of both approaches illustrate the minor influ-
ence of transverse shear effects for the given problem setup. The
Reissner-Mindlin shell with standard difference vector and DSG
modification of the membrane part (5p-stand.-DSG) avoids mem-
brane locking, but it suffers from transverse shear locking, which
is why the corresponding results deteriorate with increasing slen-
derness. Finally, the hierarchic formulation with DSG modification
(5p-hier.-DSG) is completely locking-free and the results match the
analytical beam solution quite well, independent of the
slenderness.
models are summarized in Table 3. It includes the results of the
10,000 three-dimensional shell element with DSG modification of the
membrane part (7p-hier.-DSG), which proves to be locking-free
0.4423 as well. Note, that standard displacement-based 7-parameter shell
0.3878 formulations usually suffer from curvature thickness locking (trap-
0.4423 ezoidal locking), which is automatically removed here by the con-
0.4420
cept of a hierarchic difference vector.
In addition to the displacement results discussed so far the
quality of the bending moment mxx is investigated for a fixed slen-
derness of Rt ¼ 1000 for the 5-parameter Reissner-Mindlin shell
models. Along the Gauss points in h3 -direction of path A–A – see
Fig. 7 – the stresses defined in the convective curvilinear coordi-
nate system hi are first transformed into a local Cartesian basis
with its x- and z-axes being tangential to the h1 - and h3 -directions,
respectively. The bending moment mxx is then obtained by multi-
plying with the thickness coordinate and integration through the
thickness.
The results in Fig. 10 confirm the previous observations. The
bending moments obtained with the proposed formulation ‘‘5p-
hier.-DSG’’ almost perfectly match the reference solution obtained
from equilibrium. The other formulations suffer from locking. In
the case of a purely displacement-based formulation of the mem-
brane part (5p-stand., 5p-hier.) the predicted bending moments
are almost zero. The significantly better results obtained with
‘‘5p-stand.-DSG’’, still suffering from transverse shear locking,
reconfirms the fact that membrane locking is the dominant phe-
nomenon in this numerical test.
Similar results are obtained with the 3p- and 7p-versions of the
presented elements.
In Section 4.3 a hybrid stress (HS) formulation of the membrane
part has been briefly sketched as an alternative to the DSG method
to remove membrane locking. Table 4 compares the corresponding
results with the ones already reported in Table 3. It can be seen
that also the HS modification removes membrane locking; the re-
sults are almost identical to the ones obtained with the DSG mod-
ification. The same observation can be made for the bending
moments (not shown). Numerical advantages of the hybrid stress
concept, compared to DSG, arise from the sparse format of the sys-
tem stiffness matrices if no static condensation of the stress
parameters b is performed.

Ly
A

t
R

x
y

θ1
ux
Lx
θ2 A θ3 qx

Fig. 7. Cylindrical shell strip.

178 R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180

1.6 4e-007
3p
1.4 3p-DSG
Bernoulli 0
radial displacement u x

1.2
1 -4e-007
0.8

m xx
-8e-007
0.6
0.4 -1.2e-006 5p-stand.
5p-hier.
0.2 -1.6e-006 5p-stand.-DSG
5p-hier.-DSG
0 Bernoulli
1 10 100 1000 10000 -2e-006
slenderness R 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
t
Path A − A
Fig. 8. Cylindrical shell, displacement ux , 3-parameter shell formulations.
Fig. 10. Cylindrical shell, bending moment mxx , 5-parameter shell formulations.

1.8
5p-stand. Table 4
1.6 5p-hier. Cylindrical shell, displacement ux , hierarchic DSG and HS formulations.
5p-stand.-DSG
1.4 5p-hier.-DSG R 5 10 100 1000 10,000
radial displacement u x

Slenderness t
1.2 Bernoulli
Shell formulation
1 3p-DSG 0.9288 0.9406 0.9444 0.9445 0.9445
3p-HS 0.9269 0.9386 0.9425 0.9425 0.9425
0.8
5p-hier.-DSG 0.9352 0.9422 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445
0.6 5p-hier.-HS 0.9331 0.9424 0.9424 0.9425 0.9425

0.4 7p-hier.-DSG 0.9382 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445

7p-hier.-HS 0.9361 0.9409 0.9424 0.9425 0.9425
0.2
0
1 10 100 1000 10000
slenderness R rigid diaphragm
t

Fig. 9. Cylindrical shell, displacement ux , 5-parameter shell formulations.

Table 3
Cylindrical shell, displacement ux , overview of all models.

R 5 10 100 1000 10,000

Slenderness t

Shell formulation A
3p 0.9238 0.9326 0.6635 0.0225 0.0002 free free
3p-DSG 0.9288 0.9406 0.9444 0.9445 0.9445
5p-stand. 0.9320 0.9357 0.6447 0.0206 0.0002
5p-hier. 0.9302 0.9342 0.6635 0.0225 0.0002 rigid diaphragm
5p-stand.-DSG 0.9330 0.9396 0.9048 0.7560 0.2652
5p-hier.-DSG 0.9352 0.9422 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445 L
t
7p-hier.-DSG 0.9382 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445 0.9445

E = 4.32 · 108
5.3. Scordelis–Lo roof
ν = 0.0
R
L = 50
Finally, performance of the different shell formulations is inves- R = 25
tigated by means of the well known Scordelis–Lo roof benchmark t = 0.25
problem [33]. As indicated in Fig. 11 the structure is supported at x = 40
y
both ends y ¼ 0; y ¼ L by rigid diaphragms. This setup is realized z
by imposing homogeneous displacement constraints ux ¼ wz ¼ 0:0
onto the control points of the associated edges. The shell has a Fig. 11. Scordelis–Lo roof, problem setup.

moderate slenderness of Rt ¼ 100 and is subjected to a dead load

of 90.0 per unit area.
The basis functions for the displacement field are chosen to be
biquadratic and C 1 -continuous throughout all computations. The
vertical displacement wz at point A is computed for various discret-
izations. Mesh density is characterized by the number of control
points (CP) per edge. For a simpler formulation of the boundary
conditions the full model is discretized, not using symmetry.
MacNeal and Harder [34] report as reference solution for the
displacement at point A a value of wz ¼ 0:3024.
Fig. 12 shows a comparison of two versions of the hierarchic
5-parameter formulation and the Kirchhoff–Love shell solution
by Kiendl et al. [3] (3p-Kiendl) to the reference solution. Both
Kiendl’s solution and the shear deformable element with no extra
treatment of the membrane part (5p-hier.) converge slowly

0.4
vertical displacement wz,A
0.3
0.2
0.1
0 The hierarchic formulation effectively splits bending deforma-
5 10
CP per side
Fig. 12. Scordelis–Lo roof, vertical displacement at point A.
Table 5
Vertical displacement at point A, 3p, 5p and 7p hierarchic HS formulations.
CP per side 3 5 7 9
Shell formulation
3p-HS 0.7679 0.2516 0.2996
5p-hier.-HS 0.7680 0.2517 0.2998
7p-hier.-HS 0.7681 0.2517 0.2999
because they suffer from membrane locking. Geometric locking
phenomena for the Scordelis–Lo roof problem using quadratic,
purely displacement-based NURBS finite elements can also be ob-
served in the results reported in [1,3,4].
Results obtained with the present 3-parameter shell elements
are not shown in Fig. 12. The results obtained with ‘‘3p’’ are prac-
tically identical with the ones obtained with ‘‘5p-hier.’’ and the re-
sults of ‘‘3p-HS’’ are similar to the ones from ‘‘5p-hier.-HS’’. This
means that the Kirchhoff-Love formulation presented in this paper
seems to produce different (better) results than the one from [3],
although they should be identical from a theoretical point of view
(for the case of displacement-based formulation of the membrane
part). The origin of this difference is not clear; the authors of this
paper are in contact with the authors of [3] trying to find the rea-
son for this discrepancy.
The locking-free formulation with hierarchic difference vector
and mixed formulation of the membrane part quickly converges
to the reference solution. The coarsest discretization significantly
overestimates the solution. The origin of this phenomenon is
not yet fully understood, however, it is apparently related to
the modifications of the membrane part. The discrete model
‘‘5p-hier.-DSG’’ exhibits exactly the same behavior.
Table 5 shows results of the hybrid stress versions of the hierar-
chic family of proposed elements for the Scordelis-Lo roof problem.
Like in the previous examples the results are almost identical.
6. Conclusions and prospect
A hierarchic family of isogeometric shell finite elements has
been presented. In comparison to existing isogeometric shell for-
mulations there are two major differences: first, deformation of
the shell normal is described by a hierarchic difference vector
and second, the membrane part is modified in order to remove
membrane locking. The hierarchic concept is purely displace-
ment-based, but it removes transverse shear locking and curvature
thickness locking by construction. This has been demonstrated in
various numerical experiments. The remaining problem of mem-
R. Echter et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 254 (2013) 170–180 179
brane locking is remedied with the DSG method or, alternatively,
with a stress-based mixed formulation.
Extension of these elements to geometrically non-linear prob-
lems is straightforward for the Kirchhoff-Love shell. For the shear
deformable 5-parameter models, implementation of the inextensi-
bility condition along with a formulation using a difference vector
may be awkward; at least it is not straightforward. In this case one
may resort to a formulation based on hierarchic rotations. Simi-
larly, implementation of the 7th parameter in the 3d-shell formu-
5p-hier. lation needs special attention in the non-linear case. In any case,
5p-hier.-HS the principal concept of a hierarchic update of the director will
Reference work also in the non-linear regime.
3p-Kiendl
15 20 25 tions and transverse shear deformations and thus naturally avoids
transverse shear locking. An obvious extension of the presented
concept might therefore be a hierarchic split of bending and mem-
brane deformations to avoid membrane locking as well and even-
tually obtain an elegant, locking-free, purely displacement-based
formulation. This, however, is a much more complex task. One fun-
damental issue is the fact that pure bending deformations without
membrane action exist only in special cases (so-called inextension-
11 13 al deformations of developable surfaces). Corresponding investiga-
tions are in progress.
0.3000 0.3003 0.3005 For practical computations involving more complex geometries,
0.3001 0.3005 0.3006 necessary extensions should address the issue of continuity be-
0.3001 0.3005 0.3007
tween several patches (cf. [13]) and the treatment of boundary
conditions. From the point of view of finite element technology,
the effect of mesh distortion on the results as well as consistency
and the patch test – particularly for the modified formulation of
the membrane part – is of interest.
One obvious application of the presented hierarchic family of
shell elements is model adaptivity, because coupling of different
members of the hierarchy is trivial due to the hierarchic
construction.
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