Patent ID: 8271237

Claim:
A method of reducing transverse shear locking effects of a fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element in finite element analysis comprising: defining, in a computer system, a finite element analysis model having at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element, said finite element analysis model representing an engineering product; calculating a set of aspect-ratio based scale factors for each of the at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element, wherein the aspect-ratio based scale factors are defined according to formula: λ i j = min ⁡ ( 1 , L j L i ) ⁢ ⁢ i , j = 1 , 2 , 3 where L 1 , L 2 and L 3 are respective lengths in three isoparametric dimensions of said each of the at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element, and λ i j represents one of the aspect-ratio based scale factors; creating an isoparametric Jacobian matrix of said each of the at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element by modifying, the isoparametric Jacobian matrix's off-diagonal terms with partial derivatives of an isoparametric shape functios (N I ) that is derived from aspect-ratio based scale factors such that said each of the at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element's transverse shear locking effects are reduced; and conducting an engineering simulation using finite element analysis in the computer system with the finite element analysis model having the at least one fully-integrated 8-node hexahedral element and the modified isoparametric Jacobian matrix, the engineering simulation's results are used for assisting a user in making design decisions for improving the engineering product.