An ‘FE-Meshfree’ hexahedral element with continuous nodal stress (Hexa8-CNS) is presented.
The derivatives of Hexa8-CNS shape function are continuous at nodes.
Hexa8-CNS element is able to achieve nodal stress without any smoothing operation.
Comparing to 8-node hexahedral element, the Hexa8-CNS element has high tolerance to mesh distortion.