A General Boundary Integral

Formulation for the Anisotropic Plate

Bending Problems
GUIMIN SHI AND GERARD BEZINE
Laboratoire de Mécanique des Solides (UA CNRS 861)
40, avenue du Recteur Pineau
86022 Poitiers, FRANCE
(Received January 17, 1987)
(Revised June 26, 1987)

ABSTRACT
In this paper, a new direct boundary integral element method is presented for the analy-
sis of Kirchhoff’s anisotropic plate bending problems. The two boundary integral equations
are derived from the generalized Rayleigh-Green identity after introducing the fundamen-
tal singular solution of an infinite plate corresponding to the problem of interest. By a sim-
ple discretization procedure with straight elements for the boundary, and constant assump-
tion for the unknown boundary functions, two boundary integral equations are obtained in
the matrix form. Several computational examples concerning orthotropic plate bending
problems are presented. The numerical results obtained by our method as compared with
some analytical results show that the present numerical scheme is a versatile tool which

gives a satisfactory accuracy.

Key words: boundary integral equations, anisotropic plate bending, Kirchhoff’s theory,
DBEM.

INTRODUCTION
the element methods to the flexure of thin
I N plates accordingboundary applied
RECENT YEARS,
elastic the Kirchhoffls theory have achieved
to some satisfac-
tory results. The pioneering work of the subject established the boundaryintegral
equations mostly by means of the so-called indirect methods, which have certain
shortcomings from the viewpoint of general-purpose and numerical analysis.
During the past few years, however, Bezine [1], Stern [2], and Du, Yao and Song
[3] et al. independently proposed the boundary integral equations in terms of the
boundary variables having definite physical meanings from the different starting
points for the analysis of isotropic thin plate bending problems. This method is
usually known as the direct method. Recent developments and some interesting
extensions of the direct boundary element methods applied to the flexure of iso-
tropic plate were investigated by Shi [4] and Bezine [5].
694 Journal of COMPOSITE MATERIALS, Vol. 22 -August 1988
0021-9983/88/08 0694-23 $4.50/0
@ 1988 Technomic Pubhshmg Co., Inc

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However, for the analysis of thin anisotropic plate bending problems, very few
attempts have been made up until now by the direct boundary element methods.
To the knowledge of the authors, the BEM appears to have been used only twice.
First, Wu and Altiero [6] proposed a numerical solution procedure for the bend-
ing problems of anisotropic plates based on an indirect method, and they com-
puted some example problems. Later, Kamiya and Sawaki [7] investigated a
simplified direct boundary element method for the flexure of an orthotropic plate
by analogy with the method devised for the isotropic plate bending problems, and
gave a single numerical example of an orthotopic clamped circular plate.
In the present paper, we propose a new Direct Boundary Element Method
(DBEM) for the analysis of Kirchhof~s anisotropic plate bending problems. This
formulation derives from the well-known generalized Rayleigh-Green identity in
the case of anisotropic plate bending theory [8]. Since the boundary integral
equations are established in terms of the principal physical quantities, namely,
the deflection, the normal slope, the bending moment, the Kirchhoffls equivalent
shear force and the jumps of twisting moment, which appear in the conventional
boundary conditions, this method is applicable to anisotropic plate bending prob-
lems under arbitrary boundary conditions, and particularly when the domain has
a non-smooth boundary. For this aim, we propose an original approach in order
to eliminate the twisting moment at the corners on the boundary of the plate. And
for the first time we give the expressions of all the kernels involved in the two
boundary integral equations. Some numerical examples illustrate the precision of
the current method for the practical applications.

Kirchhofrs Theory of Anisotropic Plate

Suppose an anisotropic plate in the cartesian coordinates system o-xyz (Figure
1), occupying the domain Sl with a boundary r. This plate is loaded by a transverse

Figure 1. Definition of the plate.

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load intensity p(x,y). According to the Kirchhoffs theory of anisotropic plate

flexure [10,11], the fundamental equations of the problem can be written as fol-
lows :
1. Governing equation

where w(x,y) is the lateral deflection, Dll, D,2, D22, D66, D16, D26 are the
flexural rigidities of the anisotropic plate.
2. Boundary conditions

where ii is the outward unit normal vector to the boundary r, and Mn, Vn
respectively the normal bending moment and the Kirchhoi~s equivalent
are
shear force on the boundary r.
3. Bending and twisting moments, and transverse shear forces inside So

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4. Operators defined on the boundary

where a = (x,ii), R is the curvature radius at a smooth point of the boundary

r, and Tn (.) is the operator of the twisting moment. The constants are defined
as

and

and

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Generalized Rayleigh-Green Identity and Fundamental Solution

The boundary integral equations for the bending problems of thin isotropic
plates were obtained by several authors in different ways. Now we are going to es-
tablish two boundary integral equations of anisotropic plate bending problems by
using the Generalized Rayleigh-Green identity. In the case of anisotropic plate,
this identity can be written as follows [8]

where w and u are two functions with sufficient degree of continuity, m is the
number of corner points of the boundary, [[ ...]].,, is the jump at corner s, along
the boundary arc corrdinate s, and 00 (.) is defined by

We introduce now the fundamental singular solution r~ which satisfies

where 6(Q,P) is the Dirac delta-function behaving singular at the source point
P(xo,yo). The solution of Equation (10) stands for the deflection at point Q(x,y) of
an infinite anisotropic plate subjected to a concentrated lateral load D22 at point

P (xo~yo).
Lekhnitskii proved that the characteristic equation of Equation (1), i.e.

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 699

could not have real roots in the case of anisotropic homogeneous elastic plates
[11]. Let

be the roots of the characteristic Equation (11). Defining a polar coordinates

system (rO) such as

then the fundamental singular solution wS(r,O) =

WS(Q,P) can be expressed as fol-
lows [6,8,9]

where

and

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700

and

with

It should be noted that in the functions Rk(r,6) and ~(r,9), the coefficient a is an
arbitrary constant for our method. One can always choose, for example, that
a = 1 (In fact the value of a does not modify the numerical solution).
Note also that if the flexural rigidities satisfy

then, the solution given in Equation (14) takes an indeterminate form. For such
a case, the fundamental singular solution can be written as [6,12]

Boundary Integral Equations

From the generalized Rayleigh-Green identity [8], if we choose w as the deflec-
tion of the plate under consideration, and u as the fundamental solution WS(Q,P),
and making use of the properties of Dirac 6-function in connection with Equation
(1), the following integral representation is obtained:

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This equation gives, in fact, the value of deflection w at a point P (xo, yo) inside
0 in terms of the boundary known and unknown variables.
In the same way as for the analysis of istropic plate bending problems, when
the interior point P (xo, yo) approaches to one point on the boundary r, one ob-
tains the first boundary integral equation [5,8] :

For a plate bending problem, there are always two unknowns at any point of the
boundary. Consequently we must establish a second boundary integral equation
for solving the problem of interest. This one is obtained by differentiating Equa-
tion (21) with respect to point P (xo, yo) in the direction of the outward unit nor-
mal no at P (xo, yo). This new boundary integral equation can be formed as fol-
lows

We give in Annexe the expressions of aw,lan, Mn(wS), Vn(WS), Tn(wS), aw’lan.,

a’w’lanoan, aM&dquo;(w$)lano, av&dquo;(ws)lano and c3T&dquo;(ws)lano which appear in two
boundary integral equations (21) and (22).
Equations (21) and (22) involve four fundamental boundary variables, i.e.,
deflection w, normal slope awlan, bending moment M&dquo;(w) and Kirchhoffs
equivalent shear force Y&dquo;(w), whose two should be the unknowns of the problem

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and two others are given by the two boundary conditions. However, in the other
hand, the twisting moment T&dquo;(w) is not considered as a fundamental variable in
our numerical treatment, and it will be expressed in terms of the fundamental
variables in the following.
In fact, from the expression ofM,, and Tn associated with w in the formulas (4),
one can obtain for Mn(w) and T,,(w) the following forms:

where the coefficients are defined as

From Equation (23) we can then easily express T&dquo;(w) as follows

After the discretization of the boundary, one can always approximate

a2wlanat = alat(awlan) by the nodal values of awlan, and a2wlat2 by those of
w, at several nodes near the corner points of the boundary. So we prove that the
twisting moment T&dquo;(w) can be always expressed in terms of w, awlan and M,,(w).

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In these conditions, one can calculate the two boundary unknowns by applying
Equations (21) and (22).

Numerical Formulation
The boundary r is discretized into n straight elements N, (i = 1, ..., n) with
a node C, defined at the middle point of each segment. The boundary variables
w, awlc3n, Mn(w) and V,,(w) are supposed to be constant along each element N,,
their values being those taken by the variables at the node C,. So, on placing suc-
cessively the source point P(xo, Yo) at every node C,(i = 1, n), one can ...,

finally write Equations (21) and (22) in the matrix form as follows

where [~i], [B,], [C1], [Dl] and [Az], [B2], [C2], LD2] are eight n by n matrices
whose components can be computed numerically from the boundary integrals in
Equations (21) and (22); {w}, lawlan), {Mn} and {Vn} are four nxl vectors whose
components are the nodal unknowns or knowns; ~7i}, {p2} are two known col-
umns calculated from the surface integrals, and ft,], {t2} are ruel vectors taking
into account the jumps in Equations (21) and (22).
By using Equation (25), the vectors {tl} and {t2} can be expressed in function
of M, fawlani and IM,,]. Consequently Equations (26) and (Z7) can be rewritten
in the following forms

where [A{], [Bl’], [Cnand [~2], [B2 ] , [C2’1, and { p i } , { p2are the modified ma-
trices and vectors after having added the jumps at the corners of the boundary
into the corresponding matrices and vectors in Equations (26) and (27).
For a discretization of the boundary into n constant elements, we have, a priori,
2 unknowns at each node C, and hence 2n unknowns on the boundary. In fact,
Equations (28) and (29) contain 4n fundamental variables, i.e., [w], ~w/3~,
{M&dquo;} and I Vnwhose 2n are given by the boundary conditions [2], accordingly it
remains 2n variables which are the unknowns of the problem. On the other hand,
we have exactly 2n equations given by (28) and (29). Consequently we can finally
obtain a system of 2n linear equations for solving 2n unknowns

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704

where {Xis a column vector of the 2n unknowns, [E] is a 2nx2n matrix, and ( f]
is a known 2nxvector.
When the linear system (30) is solved, and all of the variables on boundary are
known, then it is possible to compute the deflection w at an arbitrary point inside
the domain So by using the integral representation (20).

Numerical Results
The first application of our Direct Boundary Element Method (DBEM) is a
square orthotropic plate simply-supported on its four edges. The flexural rigid-
ities can be written as

and

where we set Ex 2.068 x 10&dquo; Nlm2, E~ = E)15, VX = 0.3, Gxy = 6.055 x

=

101 Nlm2 and h 0.01 m. The boundary of the plate is discretized into 40
=

straight elements, each edge having 10 equal length segments.

For such a square orthotropic plate bending problem, an anlytical solution is
given in [10,11]. Moreover, Wu and Altiero have studied this plate subjected to
uniformly distributed lateral load, and given some computational results [6]. In
our practical computation, we have obtained the numerical results for the normal

slope and the Kirchhoffls equivalent shear force on the boundary, and for the
deflection at some points inside the domain.
We have treated two cases:
~ an uniform load per unit area p
~ a concentrated load F at the centre of the plate
In Table 1 we compare the numerical results obtained by the present DBEM with
the results given by the analytical solution [11] for deflection values at the centre
of the plate in these two different loads cases.

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Table 1. Deflection at the centre of a simply-supported orthotropic plate.

Where a is the of edges of the plate. We see that the numerical results
length
computed by DBEM are in very good agreement with the exact solution,
our
since the error is only about 0.5 %.
Also, results for the deflection along the two axes of symmetry of the plate
under an uniform load or a concentrated force are shown in Figure 2 and Figure
3 respectively.
Once again, we compared our numerical results with the analytical solution
and, for the case of an uniform load, with the results given by Wu and Altiero [6].
These results show that our method has a very good precision.
In the end we present the numerical boundary results for the normal slope in
Figure 4 and Figure 5, and for the Kirchhoffs equivalent shear force in Figure 6
and Figure 7 along the two demi-edges of the plate for the two load types respec-
tively.
All these results are in good agreement with those available from analytical
solution or other numerical methods. They prove the accuracy of our before men-
tioned numerical technique.
Our second example problem consists of a square orthotropic plate whose all

Figure 2. Deflection along two demi-axes of symmetry of a simply-supported orthotropic

plate with an uniform load.

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Figure 3. Deflection along two demi-axes of symmetry of a simply-supported orthotropic
plate with a concentrated force at its centre.

Figure 4. Normal slope along two demi-edges of a simply-supported orthotropic plate with
uniform load.

706

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Figure 5. Normal slope along two demi-edges of a simply-supported orthotropic plate with
a concentrated force at its centre.

Figure 6. Kirchhoff’s shear force along two demi-edges of a simply-supported orthotroppic

plate with an uniform load.

707

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Figure 7. Kirchhoff’s shear force along two demi-edges of a simply-supported orthotropic
plate with a concentrated force at its centre.

Figure 8. Deflection along the axis of symmetry of a cantilever orthotropic plate with a con-
centrated force at its centre.

708

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 709

four edges are clamped. For solving this problem we have used the same dis-
cretization for the boundary as in the first example. Numerical results are the
deflection inside the domain, the bending moment and the Kirchhoi~s equivalent
shear force on boundary. The computational results show that the maximal
deflection value occurs at the centre of the plate:

for an uniformly distributed load p. And

for a concentrated force F applied at the centre of the plate. In Table 2 we give
the numerical results on boundary for the bending moment Mn and the Kir-
chhof~s equivalent shear force Vn in the dimensionless forms.
To test the performance of our DBEM for various boundary conditions, we
have treated as a last numerical example a square cantilever orthotropic plate
under a concentrated load F at its centre. The discretization of the boundary is the
same as in the previous examples. In the practical computation, we have obtained
for this problem the numerical results for the deflection w along the axis of sym-
metry (Figure 8), the deflection w and the normal slope awlan along the free
edges (Figure 9 and 10). For the bending moment M,, and the KirchhofTs equiva-
Table 2. Boundary numerical results obtained by our DBEM
for a clamped orthotropic plate.

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Figure 9. Deflection along the free edges of a cantilever orthotropic plate with a concen-
trated force at its centre.

Figure 10. Normal slope along the free edges of a cantilever orthotropic plate with a con-
centrated force at Its centre.

710

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 711

lent shear force Vn along the clamped edge, the numerical results show that the
maximum values

and

occur at the centre of the clamped edge for both M~ and Vn.

CONCLUSION
A new direct boundary integral equation-boundary element method for the
solution of Kirchhofps anisotropic plate bending problems has been presented.
Owing to the characteristics of the two proposed boundary integral equations and
to the new numerical treatment for the twisting moment on boundary, this
method can be used to analyse the flexure of anisotropic plates with any plan
forms under arbitrary conventional boundary conditions, particularly for the
plates with a boundary having some corner points. Numerical results of the prac-
tical computation of some example problems show that this direct boundary ele-
ment method has a satisfactory accuracy. And one of the most interesting features
of the present numerical technique is the considerable reduction in the data prep-
aration to run a practical anisotropic plate bending problem.

ANNEXE
The kernel functions involved in the boundary integral Equations (21) and (22)
can be obtained by using the boundary operators (4) with respect to the funda-
mental solution w$(r,9) given in (14). In other words, one can give the expressions
of the kernels as follows:

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712

where «o = (x, no), and the constants have been defined in (5), (6) and (7).
The derivatives of the fundamental solution in (33) and (34) can be expressed
by those of the functions R,(r,9), S,(r,6) (i = 1,2) given in (15) and (16). For ex-
ample :

So we give only the derivatives of R,(rO) and S,(r,9) in the following.

Derivatives of R,(r,9) (i = 1,2):

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 713

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714

Derivatives of S, (r, 8) (I =
1,2):«

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 715

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3. Du, Q., Z. Yao and G. Song. "Solutions of Some Plate Bending Problems Using the Boundary
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