Remarks on partial selective reduced integration method for Reissner-Mindlin plate problem

We deal with the approximation of the Reissner-Mindlin plate problem by mea ns of finite element techniques. We consider a non-standard mixed formulati on recently proposed by Arnold and Brezzi. These methods are based on a sui table splitting, depending on a parameter. of the shear energy term into tw o parts, one of them being exactly integrated, while for the second one a r educed integration formula is used. In this paper we analyse the numerical behaviour of the approximate solution varying the splitting parameter and w e propose a recipe for its choice. (C) 1999 Civil-Comp Ltd and Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.