This paper on "A Single Element Test for Membrane Locking of Curved Shell Elements" was presented at the International Conference on Quality Assurance and Standards in Finite Element Analysis - 22-25 May 1989, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Abstract

A single element test is described which yields specific information on the number and severity of the membrane locking modes of a curved shell element. In the test, the element’s bending stiffness is set to zero and its eigenvalues and eigenvectors are measured. The presence of membrane locking is indicated if less than a certain required number of stress-free deformation modes is present.
The test has been applied to three MSC/NASTRAN shell elements. The results correlate well with performance in the Morley hemispherical shell problem. (l) The new test reveals the presence of hitherto unsuspected membrane locking modes in the MSC/NASTRAN QUA08 element.