Ak. Soh et Ck. Soh, DETERMINATION OF INTER-BOUNDARY AND FREE-BOUNDARY STRESSES IN PLATE ANALYSIS, Journal of engineering mechanics, 119(3), 1993, pp. 427-455
The conventional finite-element method shows its weakness in determini
ng the stress distributions along free- and interboundaries for plate
(facet shell) analysis. This is because the chosen element displacemen
t and rotation functions do not implicitly satisfy the conditions that
prevail at the boundaries. A procedure has been proposed to modify th
e conventional finite-element method so as to allow the elastic stress
es along the free- and interboundaries of plates to be determined with
improved accuracy. The results obtained by this modified method are c
ompared with both an experimental and a traditional finite-clement sol
ution. The comparison shows that the modified solution is in better ag
reement with the experimental test data as compared with the tradition
al solution. The computation time required to perform the additional c
alculations for determining free- and interboundary stresses with impr
oved accuracy is only a small fraction of that required for the comple
te finite-element analysis.