Three dimensional vibration analyses using an eight-node hexahedral element with continuous nodal stress

The recently published hybrid FE-Meshfree eight-node hexahedral element with continuous nodal stress (Hexa8-CNS) is extended to free and forced vibration analyses of three dimensional solids. As a partition-of-unity (PU) based method, Hexa8-CNS element is capable of constructing high order global displacement approximation function without adding extra nodes or DOFs, by simply using the same mesh as the classical eight-node isoparametric hexahedral (Hexa8) element. In this paper, a series of free vibration and forced vibration problems are solved and results obtained through the Hexa8-CNS element are compared with those obtained through the Hexa8 element. Numerical results show that performance of the Hexa8-CNS element is much better than that of Hexa8 element for both regular and distorted meshes. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.