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General Description
Section 1
1-18
1.6 Finite Element Information
F
or input, see
sections 5.11, 5.13,
5.14, 5.21, 5.24, and
5.32.3
STAAD is equipped with a plate/shell finite element, solid finite
element and an entity called the surface element. The features of
each is explained below.
1.6.1 Plate/Shell Element
The Plate/Shell finite element is based on the hybrid element
formulation. The element can be 3-noded (triangular) or 4-noded
(quadrilateral). If all the four nodes of a quadrilateral element do
not lie on one plane, it is advisable to model them as triangular
elements. The thickness of the element may be different from one
node to another.
“Surface structures” such as walls, slabs, plates and shells may be
modeled using finite elements. For convenience in generation of a
finer mesh of plate/shell elements within a large area, a MESH
GENERATION facility is available. The facility is described in
detail in Section 5.14.
The user may also use the element for PLANE STRESS action
only (i.e. membrane/in-plane stiffness only). The ELEMENT
PLANE STRESS command should be used for this purpose.