ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors examine torsion of noncircular prismatic shafts using triangular elements. They used the total potential energy as the quadratic functional to develop the key matrix equation for the finite element process. The authors present a brief treatment of torsion. The matrix working equation was developed by using the total complementary energy functional. The authors consider the solution of torsion problems. They consider a simple cross section for which only four elements are used. The authors also explore the torsion of a shaft with a square cross section. Note that the authors need only work with one-eighth of the cross section because of the symmetry of the cross section about the diagonals.
