Modification of the quadratic 10‐node tetrahedron for thin structures and stiff materials under large‐strain hyperelastic deformation

The concept of energy‐sampling stabilization is used to develop a mean‐strain quadratic 10‐node tetrahedral element for the solution of geometrically nonlinear solid mechanics problems. The development parallels recent developments of a “composite” uniform‐strain 10‐node tetrahedron for applications to linear elasticity and nonlinear deformation. The technique relies on stabilization by energy sampling with a mean‐strain quadrature and proposes to choose the stabilization parameters as a quasi‐optimal solution to a set of linear elastic benchmark problems. The accuracy and convergence characteristics of the present formulation are tested on linear and nonlinear benchmarks and compare favorably with the capabilities of other mean‐strain and high‐performance tetrahedral and hexahedral elements for solids, thin‐walled structures (shells), and nearly incompressible structures.