Relationships between bending solutions of Reissner and Mindlin plate theories

Of the many shear deformable plate theories proposed over the years, the Mi ndlin plate theory and Reissner plate theory are fundamentally simpler to a dopt for modelling the shear deformation behaviour of thick plates. However , both of these theories have been perceived to be the same, despite their profound differences in assumptions and formulations, This study aims to es tablish these differences between both theories by deriving bending relatio nships between Mindlin and Reissner plate quantities for a general plate pr oblem. This general set of novel relationships is then specialized for the cases of rectangular plates with (1) all sides simply supported, (2) two op posite edges simply supported with the other two edges free, and (3) two op posite edges simply supported with the other two edges clamped. The special ized bending relationships clearly show the dissimilarity of the two theori es for these plate problems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese rved.