Analysis of plane frame structure using base force element method

The base force element method (BFEM) is a new finite element method. In this paper, a degenerated 4-mid-node plane element from concave polygonal element of BFEM was proposed. The performance of this quadrilateral element with 4 mid-edge nodes in the BFEM on complementary energy principle is studied. Four examples of linear elastic analysis for plane frame structure are presented. The influence of aspect ratio of the element is analyzed. The feasibility of the 4 mid-edge node element model of BFEM on complementary energy principles researched for plane frame problems. The results using the BFEM are compared with corresponding analytical solutions and those obtained from the standard displacement finite element method. It is revealed that the BFEM has better performance compared to the displacement model in the case of large aspect ratio.