Abstract
A thin-plate large deflection analysis using the Hermite-type reproducing kernel is presented. C1 continuity is needed for thin-plate bending analyses that are based on Kirchhoff-Love plate theory. The Hermite-type approximation supplies this continuity, is accurate and converges when used in thin-plate bending problems. In this paper, a flat shell formulation based on the HRK is presented. Moreover, the method can be extended to analyses involving geometrical non-linearities. In-plane deformations are represented using the reproducing kernel and the deflection is represented using the HRK. A total Lagrangian formulation was adopted for solving the incremental nonlinear analysis. Some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed technique.
