Acta Universitatis Sapientiae

Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, 11 (2019) 67-78

DOI: 10.2478/auseme-2019-0006

A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space

Fiber Rotation Concept
Kamel MEFTAH1, Lakhdar SEDIRA2
1 University of Biskra, Laboratoire de Génie Energétique et Matériaux, LGEM, Faculty of
Sciences and Technology, Biskra, 07000, Algeria, e-mail: [email protected]
2 University of Biskra, Laboratoire de Génie Mécanique, LGM, Faculty of Sciences and

Technology, Biskra, 07000, Algeria, e-mail: [email protected]

Manuscript received August 23, 2019; revised September 19, 2019

Abstract: The paper presents a four-node tetrahedral solid finite element SFR4 with
rotational degrees of freedom (DOFs) based on the Space Fiber Rotation (SFR) concept
for modeling three-dimensional solid structures. This SFR concept is based on the idea
that a 3D virtual fiber, after a spatial rotation, introduces an enhancement of the strain
field tensor approximation. Full numerical integration is used to evaluate the element
stiffness matrix. To demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the developed four-node
tetrahedron solid element and to compare its performance with the classical four-node
tetrahedral element, extensive numerical studies are presented.

Keywords: Four-node tetrahedral element, 3D finite element, Space Fiber Rotation

concept, rotational DOFs.

1. Introduction
Three types of solid elements are commonly used in modeling three-
dimensional solid structures: tetrahedron, hexahedron (also known as brick) and
prism (also known wedge or pentahedron) elements. Because of their suitability
for arbitrary complex geometries and fully automatic mesh generations, the use
of tetrahedral elements becomes practically unavoidable in complex finite
element structural analyses. Over the past two decades, there had been a revival
of interest in the tetrahedral solid elements possessing rotational degrees of
freedom (DOFs), to improve the computational efficiency of the standard first-
order elements. Various formulations have been used for the development of
tetrahedral finite elements with rotational degrees of freedom. One of the first
achievements in this direction was due to Pawlak et al. [1] in the development
of the 4-node tetrahedral element, including translations and rotations as nodal

67
68 K. Meftah, and L. Sedira

DOFs for 3D elasticity problems. In the work of Sze and Pan [2], a hybrid stress
tetrahedron element with Allmans rotation DOFs is developed. Stabilization
techniques are used to control the spurious modes by the four skew symmetric
stress modes. It is interesting to note that the advanced 4-node elements with
only corner nodes and rotational DOFs are obtained from that a subparametric
10-node tetrahedron element. Another simple approach to construct a 4-node
tetrahedron element with rotational DOFs has been proposed by Matsubara et
al. [3]. Working along the lines of rotational DOFs framework, Tian and
Yagawa [4] developed a 4-node quadratic tetrahedron element with four corner
nodes using the generalized node following the idea of the partition-of-unity-
based finite element approximation. Later, Tian et al. [5] published the work on
advanced 4-node tetrahedron elements using vertex rotational DOFs. It is
noteworthy that the accuracy of their solid elements is significantly better than
the accuracy of the classical first-order elements and globally close to that of the
classical quadratic elements. A description of other available theories can be
found, for example, in the review article by Tian et al. [6]. Also, in Reference
[7] various elements are described that add rotational degrees of freedom to a
four-node tetrahedron with the rotational formulation generally based on
assumed strains or displacement gradients of a ten node tetrahedron.
The so-called Space Fiber Rotation (SFR) concept was firstly introduced by
Ayad [8] and later by Meftah [9] to enhance the accuracy of first-order finite
elements. This SFR concept was then adapted to 3D elastic structures by Meftah
et al. [10] by developing a 3D six-node prismatic solid element, named SFR6,
and by Ayad et al. [11] by introducing two 3D eight-node hexahedral solid
elements named SFR8 and SFR8I (with incompatible mode). One would like to
recall that the present concept was firstly derived from 2D and extended later
for 3D virtual rotations of a nodal fiber that improves the approximation of the
displacement vector. These SFR concept-based solid elements present three
rotational and three translational DOFs per node. Furthermore, in the work of
Meftah et al. [12], an extension of the SFR eight-node hexahedral elements
SFR8 and SFR8I, was proposed to account for geometrically nonlinear
problems. Moreover, Meftah et al. [13] developed a multilayered extension of
the eight-node hexahedral element named SFR8M to study composite laminate
structures. In particular, it was shown that these 3D SFR solid elements yield
results that are significantly better than those of the classical first-order wedge
and hexahedral elements and globally close to those of the classical quadratic
elements. It should be noted that the SFR solid elements maintain a good
performance especially for coarse and distorted meshes [9-14].
In this work, we present a four-node tetrahedral solid finite element SFR4 to
study full three-dimensional solid structures. Hence, the element has six DOFs
per node, i.e. three displacements and three rotational parameters. The proposed
 A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space Fiber Rotation Concept 69

tetrahedral element is developed by exploiting the concept of Space Fiber

Rotation. These terms, represented by the fictitious rotational degrees of
freedom, would result in the creation of an interesting added value by providing
a reliable and accurate solution. The intent is to introduce a four-node
tetrahedral element that is computationally attractive when compared with the
classical four-node tetrahedral element with translations only as DOFs. This
element uses an exact integration scheme with four-point rule. Their
performances are investigated by studying several solid structures.

2. The SFR concept finite element approximation

The SFR concept is based on the space rotation of a virtual fiber. Fig. 1
shows the geometry of the four-node tetrahedral element, in which a virtual
space fiber iq is incorporated at the nodal level. The fiber rotation, represented
by the rotation vector  , will generate an additional displacement vector that
would enrich the classical displacement field Uq of point q, used to formulate
the standard 4-node solid tetrahedral element [10, 11].

 
4
U ( , ,  )  N
i 1
i ( , ,  ) U i   i  iq ; U q  U , (1)

where U i   U i ,Vi ,Wi T is the nodal displacement vector and Ni are the classical
interpolation functions associated with the classical four-node tetrahedral
element given by:
N   1          , (2)
where  ,  and   0, 1 with 1       0 .
In addition
 x  xi   xi 
iq   y  yi  ;  i    yi  ,
 
(3)
z  z   
 i  zi 
where ( xi , yi , zi ) are the Cartesian coordinates of node i, and (x, y, z) are the
Cartesian coordinates of any point q of the element SFR4 given by the
following approximations:
4 4 4
x 
i 1
N i xi ; y  
i 1
N i yi ; z  N z .
i 1
i i (4)
70 K. Meftah, and L. Sedira

z
U  3D rotation vector
z
V
q W
x q
y
z x
i
y
i x y

a. Four -node tetrahedral element SFR 4 b. Space fiber iq

Figure 1: Geometry and kinematics of a virtual space fiber (SFR approach).

By performing the vector product  i  iq , we obtain the following approxi-
mation:
 NUi  
U   N U e
 ; N    NVi   ; i  1, ..., 4 , (5)
NWi 
n
 

where
NUi   [ Ni 0 0 0 Ni ( z  zi )  Ni ( y  yi ) ]
NVi   [ 0 Ni 0  Ni ( z  zi ) 0 Ni ( x  xi ) ] (6)
NWi   [ 0 0 Ni Ni ( y  yi )  Ni ( x  xi ) 0 ]

and
u  
e
n
Ui Vi Wi  xi  yi  zi  T ; i  1, ..., 4 (7)

is the nodal degrees of freedom vector of SFR4 element containing three

translational and three fictive rotational DOFs per node, see Fig. 1(a) [10], [11].
The strain tensor of any point q is classically defined in the global coordinate
system by:
 xx  U , x ;  yy  V, y ;  zz  W, z ;  xy  2 xy  U , y  V, x (8.a)

 xz  2 xz  U , z  W, x ;  yz  2 yz  V, z  W, y . (8.b)
 A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space Fiber Rotation Concept 71

Using expressions Eq. (8) of the mechanical strains and the approximation
Eq. (5) of the displacement vector, we obtain a matrix relationship between the
stain vector   and the nodal degrees of freedom vector U n  :



NU , x T 
 
NV , y T  

   BU n  ; 

B  
N W ,z T 
,
 
(9)
 NU , y T  NV , x T 
6 24
 T
NU , z   NW , x  
T

N T  N
 V ,z  T
W,y  
where
N , x   j1 1N ,   j1 2N ,   j1 3N , 
N , y   j2 1N ,   j2 2N ,   j2 3N ,  ;   U ,V ,W (10)
N , z   j3 1N ,   j3 2N ,   j3 3N , 
and jlk are the inverse Jacobian matrix components.
For linear elastic problems, the stiffness matrix of SFR4 takes the following
simple form:
1 1 1 
K      B C BDetJ   w B C BDetJ   
Npi

 , , ddd 
e T T
i i, i, i
, (11)
0 0 0 i 1

where [C] is the elasticity matrix relating the stress and strain vectors and Npi is
the number of integration points. For a homogeneous and isotropic material this
matrix for a three-dimensional problem can be written as:
2G     0 0 0
  2G    0 0 0 

   2G   0 0 0 
C    . (12)
 0 0 0 G 0 0
 0 0 0 0 G 0
 
 0 0 0 0 0 G 

The Lamé coefficients are expressed in terms of Young’s modulus, E, and

Poisson’s ratio,  , by:
E E
 and G  . (13)
1   1  2  21   
72 K. Meftah, and L. Sedira

The approximation of the part corresponding to the rotation of space fiber is

quadratic in terms of  ,  and  . The element stiffness matrix is integrated
exactly using a four-point numerical quadrature (Npi = 4) [15].

3. Numerical examples
In this section, we present various three-dimensional benchmark problems,
selected from the literature, have been used to evaluate the performance and
convergence rate of the proposed four-node tetrahedral solid element SFR4.

A. Cantilever beam
Fig. 2 shows a cantilever benchmark problem used in convergence study by
Tian et al. [4]. The material parameters are: Young’s modulus is E = 3.1×107
N/cm² and the Poisson’s ratio is  = 0.3. The exact solution of deflection (vexact)
at the center point of the free end is given by Timoshenko and Goodier [16]:
  H
2 
 L  x   4  5 H ² x  3L  x x² 
P 1
vexact   
3 y  (14)
6 EI   2 4 

The displacements in the directions of the applied loads are computed and
normalized with respect to the exact solutions of (14). Table 1 presents the
convergence of the normalized tip deflection (vnum/vexact) at the center point of
the free end. Obviously, the present element appeared to be the better performer
compared to the classical first-order Tet4 element taken from Reference [1].

Figure 2: The cantilever benchmark problem used in convergence study, a 10×1×1

mesh is shown; a brick is disassembled into six tetrahedrons
(W = 1 cm, H = 1 cm, L = 10 cm and P = 1 N).
 A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space Fiber Rotation Concept 73

Table 1: Normalized tip deflection ratios for the cantilever problem (vnum/vexact)

Mesh Tet4 SFR4

10×1×1 0.247 0.576
20×2×2 0.531 0.734
30×4×4 0.803 0.923
40×8×8 0.939 0.992

B. In-plane bending of a cantilever beam

Fig. 3 shows the geometry, boundary conditions and material properties of a
cantilever beam subjected to a plane transverse bending load. A reference
analytic solution of the transverse displacement of point C, belonging to the
beam’s end face, is obtained using the Timoshenko beam theory: Vref C
= 4.03
mm. This cantilever beam is modeled with six meshes: three regular meshes
M1, M2 and M3 and three distorted ones M4, M5 and M6 as shown in Fig. 4 (a
brick element is disassembled into six tetrahedral elements). We summarize in
Table 2 the normalized transverse displacement results. These numerical results
show that the four-node tetrahedral SFR4 element is sensitive to mesh
distortion. We also remark that SFR4 results are better than those of the non-
rotational standard four-node tetrahedral element Tet4.

Figure 3: Plane bending of a thin cantilever beam (E = 107 MPa,  = 0.3,

L = 100 mm, b = 1 mm, h = 10 mm and PY = 103 N).
74 K. Meftah, and L. Sedira

Figure 4: Plane bending of a cantilever beam. 3D meshing.

Table 2: In-plane bending of a cantilever beam. Normalized transverse displacement

of point C

Mesh Tet4 SFR4

M1 0.012 0.060
M2 0.034 0.221
M3 0.064 0.382
M4 0.014 0.110
M5 0.024 0.161
M6 0.058 0.306

C. Straight cantilever beam

The straight cantilever beam test proposed by MacNeal and Harder [17] also
investigates sensitivity to mesh distortion in bending. The beam is meshed with
six elements (where a brick is disassembled into six tetrahedrons) and subjected
to unit-shear force at free end (Fig. 5). The elements are distorted from regular
bricks to parallelogram-shaped elements. Geometries, material properties and
loading of straight cantilever beams are defined in Fig. 5. The theoretical
solutions for beam problems obtained from MacNeal and Harder [17] are
summarized in Table 3. The normalized tip deflection results are summarized in
Table 4. These numerical results are always more accurate than the first-order
tetrahedral element Tet4 in all mesh configurations.
 A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space Fiber Rotation Concept 75

Figure 5: Straight cantilever beam: (a) geometry and material parameters; (b) regular
mesh; (c) parallelogram mesh; (d) trapezoid mesh (E = 107 N/cm²,  = 0.3, L = 6 cm,
t = 0.1 cm, D = 0.2 cm and P0 = P1 = 1 N).

Table 3: Theoretical solutions for beam problems

Tip load direction Straight beam Curved beam

In-plane shear 0.1081 (cm) 0.08734 (cm)
Out-of-plane shear 0.4321 (cm) 0.5022 (cm)

Table 4: Normalized tip deflection of the straight cantilever beam

Element shape Load type Tet4 SFR4

Regular In-plane 0.010 0.053
Out-of-plane 0.012 0.064
Trapezoidal In-plane 0.006 0.032
Out-of-plane 0.007 0.037
Parallelogram In-plane 0.010 0.054
Out-of-plane 0.007 0.038
76 K. Meftah, and L. Sedira

D. Curved beam
The curved beam is portrayed in Fig. 6. This figure shows the geometry,
meshes and material properties. All nodal DOFs at the clamped end are
restrained. At the free end, in-plane and out-of-plane forces are applied. The
displacements at the free end in the directions of the forces are computed and
normalized by the reference solution of MacNeal and Harder [17] reported in
Table 3. The normalized end deflections in the loading directions are tabulated
in Table 5. Superior accuracy of the SFR4 element over the standard 4-node
tetrahedral element can be observed.

Figure 6: Curved cantilever beam loaded with an in-plane P1 and out-of-plane P0 shear
load (E = 107 N/cm²,  = 0.25, Rint = 4.12 cm, Rext = 4.32 cm and P0 = P1 = 1 N).

Table 5: Normalized end deflection of the curved beam

Load type Tet4 SFR4

In-plane 0.023 0.092
Out-of-plane 0.005 0.121

E. Twisted beam
The clamped thick twisted beam proposed by MacNeal and Harder [17],
under in-plane and out-of-plane unit loading (P = 1 N) at its free end, is
analyzed. This test and the mesh are presented in Fig. 7. All the displacements
at the clamped end are restrained. The theoretical solutions for displacements in
the directions of the applied loads to the problems are [17]: 0.005424 cm for in-
plane loading and 0.001754 cm for out-of-plane loading. The normalized results
 A Four-Node Tetrahedral Finite Element Based on Space Fiber Rotation Concept 77

with respect to the theoretical solutions of MacNeal and Harder [17] are
summarized in Table 6. Again, the new element presented in this paper using
SFR possesses the better performance compared with the classical 4-node
tetrahedral element.

Figure 7: Twisted beam subjected to unit in-plane force and out-of-plane force
(E = 2.9×107 N/cm²,  = 0.22, L= 12 cm, b = 1.1 cm, h = 0.32 cm and P = 1 N).

Table 6: Normalized displacements in the loading directions for the twisted cantilever
beam problem

Tip load direction Tet4 SFR4

In-plane loading 0.096 0.234
Out-of-plane loading 0.080 0.271

4. Summary and conclusions

In this paper, a new four-node tetrahedral solid element SFR4 with six DOFs
(three translations and three rotations) per node based on the Space Fiber
Rotation concept is presented. This concept considers the 3D rotation of a
virtual fiber that improves the displacement field by additional terms
incorporated in any classical first-order elements. Numerical results show that
the proposed four-node tetrahedral element SFR4 provides further improvement
to the classical first-order four-node tetrahedral element Tet4, which is fully
reflected in the analysis of three-dimensional elastic problems. In addition, the
SFR concept is shown to be an efficient tool for developing high accuracy
elements. As a future work, the reduced integration rule with one-point will be
tested in SFR4 element to prevent some locking phenomena and to enhance
computational efficiency.

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