Exact geometry solid-shell element based on a sampling surfaces technique for 3D stress analysis of doubly-curved composite shells
A hybrid-mixed ANS four-node shell element by using the sampling surfaces (SaS) technique is developed. The SaS formulation is based on choosing inside the nth layer In not equally spaced SaS parallel to the middle surface of the shell in order to introduce the displacements of these surfaces as basic shell variables. Such choice of unknowns with the consequent use of Lagrange polynomials of degree In − 1 in the thickness direction for each layer permits the presentation of the layered shell formulation...