Lower bound plane stress element for modelling 3D structures

In-plane action is often the primary load-carrying mechanism of reinforced concrete structures. The plate bending action will be secondary, and the behaviour of the structure can be modelled with a reasonable accuracy using a generalised three-dimensional plane stress element. In this paper, the formulation of such an element is given and the Mohr–Coulomb and von Mises criteria are presented for second-order cone programming. Three examples of increasing complexity are used to analyse the performance of the element and the convergence rate and to demonstrate the potential of the proposed element. © 2017, ICE Publishing: All rights reserved.