Abstract
This study is an extension of a newly introduced approach to account transverse shear deformation in absolute nodal coordinate formulation. In the formulation, shear deformation is usually defined by employing slope vectors in the element transverse direction. This leads to the description of deformation modes that, in practical problems, may be associated with high frequencies. These high frequencies, in turn, could complicate the time integration procedure, burdening numerical performance of shear deformable elements. In a recent study of this paper's authors, the description of transverse shear deformation is accounted for in a two-dimensional beam element, based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation without the use of transverse slope vectors. In the introduced shear deformable beam element, slope vectors are replaced by vectors that describe the rotation of the beam cross-section. This procedure represents a simple enhancement that does not decrease the accuracy or numerical performance of elements based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation. In this study, the approach to account for shear deformation without using transverse slopes is implemented for a thin rectangular plate element. In fact, two new plate elements are introduced: one within conventional finite element and another using the absolute nodal coordinates. Numerical results are presented in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the introduced plate element. The numerical results obtained using the introduced element agree with the results obtained using previously proposed shear deformable plate elements.
