BEAM161 Element Description
BEAM161 has several characteristics:
It is incrementally objective (rigid body rotations do not generate strains), allowing for the treatment of finite strains that occur in many practical applications.
It is simple for computational efficiency and robustness.
It is compatible with the brick elements.
It includes finite transverse shear strains. However, the added computations needed to retain this strain component, compared to those for the assumption of no transverse shear strain, are significant.