Application of the quadrilateral area co-ordinate method: a new element for Mindlin-Reissner plate

The quadrilateral area co-ordinate method is used to formulate a new quadrilateral element for Mindlin–Reissner plate bending problem. Firstly, an independent shear field is assumed based on the locking-free Timoshenko’s beam formulae; secondly, a fourth-order deflection field is assumed by introducing some generalized conforming conditions; thirdly, the rotation field is determined by the strain–displacement relations. Furthermore, a hybrid post-processing procedure is suggested to improve the stress/internal force solutions. Following this procedure, a new 4-node, 12-dof quadrilateral element, named AC-MQ4, is successfully constructed. Since all formulations are expressed by the area coordinates, element AC-MQ4 presents some different, but beneficial characters when compared with other usual models. Numerical examples show the new element is free of shear locking, insensitive to mesh distortion, and possesses excellent accuracy in the analysis of both thick and thin plates. It has also been demonstrated that the area co-ordinate method, the generalized conforming condition method, and the hybrid post-processing procedure are efficient tools for developing simple, effective and reliable finite element models