Element aspect ratio is defined as the ratio of the largest dimension of the element to its smallest dimension.
The various elements used in FEM are classified as:
Plane strain is a state of strain in which normal strain and shear strain directed perpendicular to the plane of body is assumed to be zero.
Finite element method (FEM)is a numerical technique for solving boundary value problems in which a large domain is divided into smaller pieces or elements. The solution is determined by asuuming certain ploynomials. The small pieces are called finite element and the polynomials are called shape functions.
3D elements are used for modeling solid bodies and the various 3-D elements are tetrahedron, hexahedron, and curved rectangular solid.
The various terms used in FEM are explained below:
O External nodes - The nodal point connecting adjacent elements.
O Internal nodes- The extra nodes used to increase the accuracy of solution.
The properties of shape functions are:
Discretization is the process of subdividing the given body into a number of elements which results in a system of equivalent finite elements.
The possible locations for nodes are:
Displacement function is defined as simple functions which are assumed to approximate the displacements for each element. They may assumed in the form of polynomials, and trigonometric functions.
Shape function is also called an approximate function or an interpolation function whose value is equal to unity at the node considered and zeros at all other nodes. Shape function is represented by Ni where i =nodeno.