Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS, cilt.27, ss.311-331, 2007 (SCI-Expanded)
The purpose of this paper is to study shear locking-free analysis of thick plates using Mindlin's theory and to determine the effects of the thickness/span ratio, the aspect ratio and the boundary conditions on the linear responses of thick plates subjected to uniformly distributed loads. Finite element formulation of the equations of the thick plate theory is derived by using higher order displacement shape functions. A computer program using finite element method is coded in C++ to analyze the plates clamped or simply supported along all four edges. In the analysis, 8- and 17-noded quadrilateral finite elements are used. Graphs and tables are presented that should help engineers in the design of thick plates. It is concluded that 17-noded finite element converges to exact results much faster than 8-noded finite element, and that it is better to use 17-noded finite element for shear-locking free analysis of plates. It is also concluded, in general, that the maximum displacement and bending moment increase with increasing aspect ratio, and that the results obtained in this study are better than the results given in the literature.