The paper deals with the modelling of riveted assemblies for full-scale complete aircraft
crashworthiness. To perform computations aiming at locating rupture initiation in a structure
featuring more than 100,000 rivets, it is necessary to model the assembly areas using “super-
elements”. If rivet elements have been developed, perforated plate super-elements are still
lacking. Thus, the paper focuses on plate super-finite element formulations featuring defects,
in particular holes. An original 8-node plate element containing a hole has been selected to …