Simple and efficient laminated anisotropic plate and shell triangular elements are presented. They include a three node flat shell elements and a shallow shell element of varying curvature. The Natural Mode Method is employed for their formulation. Although their Cartesian stiffness matrices are of the order 18x18, the elements essentially incorporate 12 generalized freedoms (the natural straining modes), and therefore necessitate the computation of a 12x12 (not fully populated) natural stiffness matrix. Numerical examples are presented for both isotropic and laminated composite structures. For the sake of brevity and presentation, emphasis is given here to the results; the complete theoretical foundation will be given in detail in the future publications. Up to date computer experiments are presented; they all illustrate the accuracy of the simple anisotropic triangular elements and substantiate their physical and theoretical bases for a locking free performance.

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