A 4-node quadrilateral element with center-point based discrete shear gap (CP-DSG4)

This work aims at presenting a novel four-node quadrilateral element, which is enhanced by integrating with discrete shear gap (DSG), for analysis of Reissner-Mindlin plates. In contrast to previous studies that are mainly based on three-node triangular elements, here we, the first time, extend DSG elements. We further integrate fictitious point located center element into present formulation eliminate so-called anisotropy, leading simplified and efficient calculation DSG, enhancement results in approach named as "four-node center-point - CP-DSG4". The accuracy efficiency CP-DSG4 demonstrated through our numerical experiment, its computed validated against those derived from using other existing reference solutions.