Thin Shell Element 

1. Inplane & Out of plane stiffness shall be calculated by the program by performing analysis. 
   
2. Finite element meshing is compulsory for modeling such type of element

Applications

1. Normal RC Beam and slab structures.
2. Irregular slabs, PT slabs, Flat slabs, shear walls
   

1. In plane and out of plane stiffness along with shear deformation shall be calculated by the program while performing analysis.
2. Finite element meshing is compulsory for such modeling type of element
3. The thick plate formulation is recommended to use when the shear deformations become significant. The thick plate formulation captures both shear and bending deformations, whereas the thin plate the formulation is based only on bending deformations and neglects shear deformations.

Applications

1. Raft slabs, foundation pads, transfer slab
2. Column capital in case of flat slab
   

1. Only in-plane stiffness shall be considered by the program while performing analysis.
2. Finite Element Meshing must be avoided.
3. Which is applied to membrane objects transfers directly to supporting structural objects, whereas meshed shell objects have bending stiffness and therefore resist a portion of the load through flexural deformation. As a result, less load will be available to transfer to beams located under a shell, while 100% of the load will transfer through a membrane.
   

Applications

1. Staircase slab, Precast slabs
2. Ramp slabs, deck slab, profile slab, etc
3. Yield line theory shall be considered by the program while performing analysis.
   

Layered  

1. Within layered shell objects, straight normal remain straight, which enforces full composite the behavior between layers.
2. For membrane and bending behavior, quadratic displacement fields are assumed, with appropriate handling to prevent shear locking Plane- stress behavior is assumed within each layer.
3. Straight normal do not necessarily remain normal to the mid-surface, which allows transverse shear deformation.