A TRIANGULAR THICK PLATE FINITE-ELEMENT WITH AN EXACT THIN LIMIT

We present a new formulation for a triangular finite element developed within the framework of a shear deformable plate theory. The element takes advantage of internal rotational degrees of freedom and a linked interpolation between the transverse displacement and the rotations. The element has excellent interpolating capacity and presents no locki ng effects; in fact, the shear energy may be set identically equal to zero without introducing any ill-conditioning, thus recovering a prope r thin plate limit.