A NEW 8-NODE QUADRILATERAL SHEAR-BENDING PLATE FINITE-ELEMENT

A new eight-node quadrilateral shear-bending Reissner-Mindlin plate fi nite element for the very thin and thick plates without locking and sp urious zero-energy modes is presented. The element has very good conve rgence characteristics both for thin and thick plates, is hardly insen sitive to mesh distortions, and passes the patch tests. The formulatio n of the element is derived from a displacement variational principle and some general criteria to compute inconsistent transverse shear str ains. These criteria have been applied with success to four- and eight -node quadrilateral plate finite elements and could be applied to cons truct triangular elements. The eight-node quadrilateral shear-bending plate finite element proposed has been found to be very efficient.