A third-order shear deformation plate bending formulation for thick plates: first principles derivation and applications

Abstract

A third-order shear deformation plate bending formulation is presented in this study from the first principles. The derivation assumed a displacement field constructed using third-order polynomial function of the transverse (z) coordinate; and made to apriori satisfy the linear three-dimensional (3D) kinematics relations as well as the transverse shear stress free boundary conditions at the top and bottom plate surfaces. The formulation thus has no need for shear stress correction factors of the first-order shear deformation plate theories. The domain equations of equilibrium are obtained as a set of three coupled differential equations in terms of three unknown displacements. The system of coupled equations is solved for simply supported rectangular and square plates subjected to four cases of loading distributions: sinusoidal loading, uniformly distributed loading, linearly distributed loading and point load at the plate center. Navier’s double trigonometric series method is used to construct trial solutions for the three displacement functions such that the boundary conditions are satisfied identically. The integration problem is thus reduced to an algebraic problem and is solved for each considered loading. It is found that the present formulation gives exact results for the normal stresses σxx for sinusoidal and uniformly distributed loads. The study further showed that the results for deflection and stresses agreed with Krishna Murty’s higher order shear deformation plate theory results. The present formulation gave accurate results because of the inclusion of transverse normal strain effects in the formulation. The formulation gives a quadratic variation of the transverse shear stresses across the thickness in consonance with the theory of elasticity method.