Two 8-node quadrilateral spline elements by B-net method

Isoparametric quadrilateral elements are widely used in the finite element method, but the accuracy of the isoparametric quadrilateral elements will drop obviously deteriorate due to mesh distortions. Spline functions have some properties of simplicity and conformality. Two 8-node quadrilateral elements have been developed using the triangular area coordinates and the B-net method, which can exactly model the quadratic field for both convex and concave quadrangles. Some appropriate examples are employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed elements. The numerical results show that the two spline elements can obtain solutions which are highly accurate and insensitive to mesh distortions.