| Abstract: | Penalty methods have been proposed as a viable method for enforcing interelement continuity constraints on nonconforming elements. Particularly for fourth-order problems in which C1-continuity leads to elements of high degree or complex composite elements, the use of penalty methods to enforce the C1-continuity constraint appears promising. In this study we demonstrate equivalence of the finite-element penalty method to a hybrid method and provide a stability analysis which implies that the penalty method is stable only if reduced integration of a certain order is used. Numerical experiments confirm that the penalty method fails if this condition is not met. |
