6.

1 INTRODUCTION

Kirchhoff plate elements studied in the previous chapter are restricted to

thin plate situations only (thickness/average side < 0.10). Also the CI
continuity requirement for Kirchhoff elements poses severe difficulties for
den.ving a conforming deflection field. These problems can be overcome
by using the plate formulation due to Reissner [Re] and Mindlin [Mi]
presented in this chapter.
The so called Reissuer-Mindlin plate theory assumes that the normals
to the plate do not remain orthogonal to the mid plane after deformation,
thus allowing for transverse shear deformation effects. This assumption is
analogous to that made for the rotation of the transverse cross section in
Timoshenko beam theory (Chapter 2). This allows us to use Co continuous elements. Unfortunately, some difficulties arise when Reissner-Mindlin
elements are used for thin plate situations due to the excessive influence
of the transverse shear deformation terms. The "shear locking" defect Ls
analogous to that found when Timoshenko beam elements are applied to
slender beuns. Elimination of shear locking is possible via reduced integration, linked interpolations or assumed transverse shear strain fields,
similarly as described for beams in Chapter 2.
Reissuer-Mindlin plate elements can be taken as the starting point for
deriving Co continuous thin plate elements by adequately constraining the
transverse shear deformation to he zero at selected element points. Some
of the so called Discrete-Kirchhoff (DK) plate elements are described.
A method for extending the basic rotation-free plate triangle described
in Section 5.8.2 to accounting for shear deformation effects is also outlined
in the last part of the chapter.

THICK/THIN PLATES.
REISSNER-MINDLIN THEORY