AN EFFICIENT 3-NODE TRIANGULAR ELEMENT TO STUDY THE RESPONSE OF COUPLED BENDING-TWISTING EFFECTS FOR SYMMETRICALLY LAMINATED PLATES

A new efficient three-node triangular plate element with three degrees of freedom-one transverse displacement and two rotations-at each node suitable for a bending-twisting response of moderately-thick and thin symmetrically laminated composite plates is presented. The deformatio n formulation of the plate element is based on Reissner and Mindlin's theory that incorporates the effects of transverse shear deformations. The element normally shows a severe shear locking effect in thin plat e situations using isoparametric interpolation functions with full int egration scheme. A constant transverse shear strain criterion is now i mplemented in its formulation along with a recently developed transver se shear strain correction expression to circumvent such locking effec ts. The element shows a robustness for regular and cross-diagonal tria ngular mesh configurations in both moderately-thick and thin situation s. The element shows fast convergence, and remains stable for the thre e-point integration scheme. For the purpose of illustration, the numer ical results are presented for symmetrically angle-ply laminated simpl y-supported and fully-clamped edge plates that produce bending-twistin g coupling. The results are compared with recently available double Fo urier series and generalized Wavier's - based analytical solutions, an d a well-established finite element solution.