A One-Point Quadrature Brick Element with Hourglass Control

An eight-noded hexahedral element is developed for linear and nonlinear analyses, which can be also used to analyze bending and sheet metal forming problems. The development is based on the formulation of multiple-point quadrature elements proposed by Liu, Hu and Belytschko [1]. In this new element, one-point quadrature, instead of four-point or eight-point quadrature, is used so that computational time is substantially reduced without adversely effecting the accuracy. Hourglass control is included in the element formulation to suppress spurious modes. The volumetric locking for nearly-incompressible material, as well as the shear locking in bending problems are also eliminated. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the performance of this element.