International Conference on Computational Methods (ICCM 2007), Hiroshima, JapanThis paper presents a C 0 discontinuous Galerkin formulation for the simulation of thin shells. The method is based on Koiter’s shell model and allows finite element solutions to be obtained by using standard C0 Lagrange basis functions in terms of the displacement only. It invokes a curvature-like term by applying a lifting operation which transforms jumps in the normal rotation across element boundaries into a field defined on element interiors. This procedure enforces weak continuity of normal derivative across element boundaries and a special term is added to enhance stability of the formulation. Benchmark tests using various-order elements are presented and conclusions are drawn as to the computational efficiency of the method