Local instability and free vibration of supported plates using the basic plate triangle (Q1015617)

Triangular flat elements based on superposition of membrane and bending actions are well-known since the mid 1960's. In this paper the authors use a triangular element with out-of-plane lateral deflection as the only nodal variable. Some dynamical and buckling problems are solved for square, circular and skew plates. As the authors state, the accurate results are obtained. Reviewer's remark: More precisely, the differential equations for the plates can be written in the form \[ D\sigma-f=0,\qquad CD^gw=\sigma, \] where \[ D=\bigg(-\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2},-\frac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2},\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x\partial y}\bigg),\qquad D^g=D^T,\qquad C=\frac{Eh^3}{12(1-\mu^2)}\left[\begin{matrix} 1&\mu&0\\ \mu&1&0\\ 0&0&\frac{1-\mu}{2} \end{matrix}\right], \] \(\sigma=[M_x,M_y,M_{xy}]\) is the vector of generalized forces, \(w\) is the lateral displaycement, \(M_x,M_y\) are the bending moments, \(M_{xy}\) is the rotating moment, \(f\) is the intensity of external distributed forces, \(h\) is the thickness of plate, and \(\mu\) is the Poison ratio. The operators \(D\) and \(D^g\) are conjugated in Lagrange sense. \(\int_s(D\sigma w-\sigma D^gw)\,ds= -\int_\Gamma\sigma_\Gamma^Tw_\Gamma \,d\Gamma\), where \(s\) is the area of plate, \(\Gamma\) is the boundary of plate. Such writing is true for beams, plates, shells and space body.