• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 1999

Superior performance of field consistent eight-node hexahedron element in static bending problems has already been demonstrated in literature. In this paper, its performance in free vibration is investigated. Free vibration frequencies of typical test problems have been computed using this element. The results establish its superior performance in free vibration, particularly in thin plate application and near incompressibility regimes, demonstrating that shear locking, Poisson's stiffening and volumetric locking have been eliminated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.181-199
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• 2014

Locking phenomenon is a mesh problem and can be staved off with mesh refinement. If the studier is not preferred going to the solution with increasing mesh size or the computer memory can stack over flow than using higher order plate finite element or using integration techniques is a solution for this problem. The purpose of this paper is to show the shear locking phenomenon can be avoided by increase low order finite element mesh size of the plates and to study shear locking-free analysis of thick plates using Mindlin's theory by using higher order displacement shape function and to determine the effects of various parameters such as the thickness/span ratio, mesh size on the linear responses of thick plates subjected to uniformly distributed loads. 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, 4-, 8- and 17-noded quadrilateral finite elements are used. 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.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.213-229
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• 2003

A high precision shear deformable triangular element has been proposed for free vibration analysis of composite trapezoidal plates. The element has twelve nodes at the three sides and four nodes inside the element. Initially the element has fifty-five degrees of freedom, which has been reduced to forty-eight by eliminating the degrees of freedom of the internal nodes through static condensation. Plates having different side ratios (b/a), boundary conditions, thickness ratios (h/a=0.01, 0.1 and 0.2), number of layers and fibre angle orientations have been analyzed by the proposed shear locking free element. Trapezoidal laminate with concentrated mass at the centre has also been analyzed. An efficient mass lumping scheme has been recommended, where the effect of rotary inertia has been included. For validation of the present element and formulation few results of isotropic trapezoidal plate and square composite laminate have been compared with those obtained from open literatures. The numerical results for composite trapezoidal laminate have been given as new results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.123-132
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• 2001

An improved version of the Element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) is presented here for addressing the problem of transverse shear locking in shear-deformable beams with a high length over thickness ratio. Based upon Timoshenko's theory of thick beams, it has been recognized that shear locking will be completely eliminated if the rotation field is constructed to match the field of slope, given by the first derivative of displacement. This criterion is applied directly to the most commonly implemented version of EFGM. However in the numerical process to integrate strain energy, the second derivative of the standard Moving Least Square (MLS) shape functions must be evaluated, thus requiring at least a $C^1$ continuity of MLS shape functions instead of $C^0$ continuity in the conventional EFGM. Yet this hindrance is overcome effortlessly by only using at least a $C^1$ weight function. One-dimensional quartic spline weight function with $C^2$ continuity is therefore adopted for this purpose. Various numerical results in this work indicate that the modified version of the EFGM does not exhibit transverse shear locking, reduces stress oscillations, produces fast convergence, and provides a surprisingly high degree of accuracy even with coarse domain discretizations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.79-90
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• 2004

A high precision shear deformable triangular element has been proposed for bending analysis of triangular plate. The element has twelve nodes at the three sides and four nodes inside the element. Initially the element has thirty-five degrees of freedom, which has been reduced to thirty by eliminating the degrees of freedom of the internal nodes through static condensation. Plates having different boundary conditions, side ratios (b/a) and thickness ratios (h/a = 0.001, 0.1 and 0.2) have been analyzed using the proposed shear locking free element. Concentrated and uniformly distributed transverse loads have been used for the analysis. The formulation is made based on first order shear deformation theory. For validation of the present element and formulation few results of thin triangular plate have been compared with the analytical solutions. Results for thick plate have been presented as new results.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 1991

The paper is concerned with the analysis of laminated composite shell structures using an improved degenerated shell element. In the formulation of the element stiffness, the combined use of three different techniques was made. They are; 1) an enhanced interpolation of transverse shear strains in the natural coordinate system to overcome the shear locking problem; 2) the reduced integration technique in in-plane strains to avoid the membrane locking behavior; and 3) selective addition of the nonconforming displacement modes to improve the element performances. This element is free of serious shear/membrane locking problems and undesirable compatible/commutable spurious kinematic deformation modes. An incremental total Lagrangian formulation is presented which allows the calculation of arbitrarily large displacements. The resulting non-linear equilibrium equations are solved by the Newton-Raphson method. The versatility and accuracy of this improved degenerated shell element are demonstrated by solving several numerical examples.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.277-298
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• 2002

In this study, free vibration analysis of Reissner plates on Pasternak foundation is carried out by mixed finite element method based on the G$\hat{a}$teaux differential. New boundary conditions are established for plates on Pasternak foundation. This method is developed and applied to numerous problems by Ak$\ddot{o}$z and his co-workers. In dynamic analysis, the problem reduces to the solution of a standard eigenvalue problem and the mixed element is based upon a consistent mass matrix formulation. The element has four nodes and bending and torsional moments, transverse shear forces, rotations and displacements are the basic unknowns. The element performance is assessed by comparison with numerical examples known from literature. Validity limits of Kirchhoff plate theory is tested by dynamic analysis. Shear locking effects are tested as far as $h/2a=10^{-6}$ and it is observed that REC32 is free from shear locking.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.311-331
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• 2007

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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.373-385
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to study shear locking-free parametric earthquake analysis of thick and thin plates using Mindlin's theory, to determine the effects of the thickness/span ratio, the aspect ratio and the boundary conditions on the linear responses of thick and thin plates subjected to earthquake excitations. In the analysis, finite element method is used for spatial integration and the Newmark-${\beta}$ method is used for the time integration. 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, 17-noded finite element is used. Graphs are presented that should help engineers in the design of thick plates subjected to earthquake excitations. It is concluded that 17-noded finite element can be effectively used in the earthquake analysis of thick and thin plates. It is also concluded that, in general, the changes in the thickness/span ratio are more effective on the maximum responses considered in this study than the changes in the aspect ratio.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.97-107
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• 1990

The development of an improved degenerated shell element is presented in this paper. In the formulation of this element, an enhanced interpolation of transverse shear strains in the natural coordinate system is used to overcome the shear locking problem ; the reduced integration technique in in-plane strains is applied to avoid the membrane locking behavior ; and selective addition of the nonconforming displacement modes improve the element performances. This element is free of serious locking problems and undesirable compatible or commutable spurious kinematic deformation modes, and passes the patch tests. To illustrate the performance of this improved degenerated shell element, some benchmark problems are presented. Numerical results indicate that the new element shows fast convergence and reliable solutions.