Universal 3D Connection Solid Elements for Building Analysis

Abstract

High-performance hybrid-stress hexahedral solid elements are excellent choices for modeling joints, beams/columns and walls/thick slabs for building structures if the exact geometrical representation is required. While it is straight-forward to model beam-column structures of uniform member size with solid hexahedral elements, joining up beams and columns of various cross-sections at a common point proves to be a challenge for structural modeling using hexahedral elements with specified dimensions. In general, the joint has to be decomposed into 27 smaller solid elements to cater for the necessary connection requirements. This will inevitably increase the computational cost and introduce element distortions when elements of different sizes have to be used at the joint. Universal connection hexahedral elements with arbitrary specified connection interfaces will be an ideal setup to connect structural members of different sizes without increasing the number of elements or introducing highly distorted elements. In this paper, the requirements and the characteristics of the hexahedral connection elements with 24 and 32 nodes will be discussed. Formulation of the connection elements by means of Hellinger-Reissner functional will be presented. Performance of connection elements equipped with different number of stress modes will be assessed with worked examples.