Hi everyone,

I've searched some information but still confused. "6.14 Abaqus Analysis User's Guide, 29.6.1 describes Conventional shell versus continuum shell.

However, it just mentions that conventional shell elements have displacement and rotational degrees of freedom(DOF) but continuum shell elements has only displacement DOF. And it also mentions continuum shell elements look like three-dimention continuum solid, but their kinematic and constitutive behavior is similar to convention shell elements.

1.If continuum shell elements have only displacement DOF, why they can behave like convention shell elements?

2.How to choose these two kinds of elements in different problems? For example, which one is more suitable in bending, contact problem and so on. I seldom use continuum shell elements before, hope someone can provide some suggestions in selecting element type.

Thanks,

Adam Cheng