Description

The plate theory is based on dimensional simplifications of the 3D elasticity theory, similar to those used in the analysis of beams.

In essence, the various plate theories differ, similarly to the beams case, in the assumptions of the rotation of the normal to the mid-plane. Thus the Kirchhoff’s classical theory (analogous to the beams theory of Euler Bernoulli) says that these rotations are zero and the mid-plane’s normal remain straight after the deformation. In addition, more advanced theories like Reissner-Mindlin do not require the normal orthogonally with the mid-plane after the deformed configurations therefor takes the shear effects into account.

PLATES is the program collection that implement the two classical plate theories using finite elements specifically designed to avoid the numerical problems associated with plates.