Stress and strain output corresponds to integration point locations. Thus, Lobatto integration (see INTGRD in *CONTROL_SHELL) is required to get output corresponding to the outer surfaces. In the case of stress or effective plastic strain, MAXINT in *DATABASE_EXTENT_BINARY controls how many of the shell through-thickness integration points are output. Tensorial (true) strains at output at the uppermost and lowermost integration points only and only when STRFLG=1 in *DATABASE_EXTENT_BINARY. See the tables under *SECTION_SHELL for integration point locations.
See also: Shell Strain; Shell Resultants