Weighted Integration Route to Stiffness Matrix of Quadrilaterals for Speed, Accuracy and Functionally Graded Material Application

A weighted integration route with robust one-point integration (hourglass-controlled) is proposed as efficient, time saving alternative to Gauss quadrature for stiffness matrix of bilinear quadrilaterals. One-point rule relies on sampling at the center of the element to linearize the geometric transformation and average the material property over it. This enables, for a given element, explicit integration of stiffness matrix yielding a first approximation. For a second and better approximation, this procedure is applied independently to each of the four sub-squares of the mapped 2-square of the element and the matrices are assembled. A weighted addition of the two approximations produces a stiffness matrix as accurate as from 3-point Gauss-quadrature (G9P). Whereas, due to explicit integrations, obtaining stiffness matrix in this way demands less than a third of the time needed for 2-point Gauss-quadrature (G4P). On both counts (speed and accuracy) this approach outperforms Gauss-quadrature. Sampling (material and geometry) at 5-points makes this element superior to G4P for Functionally Graded Material (FGM) applications. Bench mark examples by this approach are validated with Gauss quadrature and analytical solutions.