A new triangular stiffened plate element for laminate analysis

A new stiffened plate element for the analysis of laminated stiffened plate s has been presented. The basic plate element is a combination of Allman's plane stress triangular element and discrete Kirchhoff-Mindlin plate bendin g element. The stiffened plate element has been developed to include the ef fects of transverse shear. The element can accommodate any number of arbitr arily oriented stiffeners and is completely free from the usual constraints on the mesh division of the plates. The element has no problems associated with shear locking - a phenomenon usually encountered in isoparametric ele ments. Static and free vibration analyses of laminated stiffened plates hav e been carried out with this element and the results are compared with thos e published. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.