Strip Method

Geometric nonlinear analysis of stiened plates by the
spline nite strip method

A.H. Sheikh, M. Mukhopadhyay*
Department of Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721 302, India
Received 13 February 1997; accepted 22 June 1999
Abstract
Geometric nonlinear analysis of stiened plates is investigated by the spline nite strip method. von Karman's
nonlinear plate theory is adopted and the formulation is made in total Lagrangian coordinate system. The resulting
nonlinear equations are solved by the NewtonRaphson iteration technique. To analyse plates having any arbitrary
shapes, the whole plate is mapped into a square domain. The mapped domain is discretised into a number of strips.
In this method, the displacement interpolation functions used are: the spline functions in the longitudinal direction
of the strip and the nite element shape functions in the other direction. The stiener is elegantly modelled so that it
can be placed anywhere within the plate strip. The arbitrary orientation of the stiener and its eccentricity are
incorporated in the formulation. All these aspects have ultimately made the proposed approach a most versatile tool
of analysis. Plates and stiened plates are analysed and the results are presented along with those of other
investigators for necessary comparison and discussion. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Plate; Stiener; Spline functions; Large deection; Total Lagrangian coordinate system; von Karman's nonlinear plate
theory
1. Introduction
Plates are extensively used in various engineering con-
structions. The technique of stiening a plate by stien-
ers is rather common as it gives higher values of strength
to weight ratio of the structure. This has made the struc-
ture more attractive in practice. Investigations on the
behaviour of stiened plates have been carried out for a
long time [1] but most of these works are conned to lin-
ear analysis only. As plates and stiened plates belong
to the category of thin walled structures, they may
undergo large deformations when they are subjected to
external loading. At large deection level, membrane
stresses are produced which give additional stiness to
the structure. The straindisplacement relationship
becomes nonlinear in this range which is the bane of
nonlinearity of the present problem.
In this age of the computer, a numerical method is the
only alternative to obtain a general solution of a com-
plex problem such as nonlinear analysis of a stiened
plate. Amongst the dierent numerical methods avail-
able, the nite element method is undoubtedly the most
accurate and versatile one but it takes a large amount of
computer storage and solution time. To get an economic
solution with reasonable accuracy, a semi-analytical
nite strip method [2] has been proposed particularly for
the regular shaped structures. The method has been
Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 765785
0045-7949/00/$ - see front matter 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0045- 7949( 99) 00191- 1
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jit@naval.iitkgp.ernet.in (M.
Mukhopadhyay).
extensively used for the analysis of regular shaped plates,
but it suers from a number of drawbacks such as mixed
boundary conditions, continuous span, internal open-
ing, interior supports and some similar features. These
are mostly due to the characteristic beam function used
as a displacement interpolation function along the longi-
tudinal direction of the strip.
The spline nite strip method [3] has recently been
proposed as a complement to the semi-analytical nite
strip method. In this method, spline functions are used
in the longitudinal direction of the strip. It has resulted
in overcoming most of the shortcomings of the conven-
tional nite strip method. Actually, spline functions can
represent fairly well any sharp variation of the defor-
mation as the functions are piece-wise polynomials. This
has increased the accuracy of the method [4]. Further,
the method has been made more general to cater for
plates having an arbitrary shape [5]. Thus, the method is
more economic than the nite element method for the
attainment of the same order of accuracy [4] and gener-
ality [5]. The authors have applied the method to the lin-
ear analysis [6,7] of stiened plates.
In this paper the spline nite strip method is applied
to the large deection analysis of plates and stiened
plates. The formulation is performed in the total
Lagrangian coordinate system [8] using von Karman's
large deection plate theory. The governing equations
are nonlinear which are solved by iterative technique
following the NewtonRaphson method. As the com-
putational time involved in the generation of a tangent
stiness matrix is signicant, a slight modication is
made in the iteration technique. Once the tangent sti-
ness matrix is generated and factorised, it is used for a
few iterations which has helped to reduce some compu-
tational time. In order to maintain a better rate of con-
vergence, it is updated after a few iterations. The
generalised form of the spline nite strip method [5] is
used to analyse plates having any shape. The stiener
is modelled in such a way that it may lie anywhere
within the plate strip and it may have any orientation
and eccentricity. The same displacement interpolation
functions are used for the plate and the stiener which
ensures compatibility between these two. Numerical
examples of dierent plates and stiened plates as
available in the literature are solved to validate the
proposed technique.
2. Proposed analysis
The basic assumptions made in the formulation are:
(a) the transverse deection is moderate; (b) material is
linearly elastic; and (c) the common normal to the
plate and the stiener system before bending remains
straight and normal to the deected middle plane of
the plate after bending.
To cater for the arbitrary plate shape, the whole
plate is approximately mapped into a square domain
in a dierent plane (xZ ) as shown in Fig. 1. The
mapping is done by using a cubic serendipity shape
function [8] and is as follows
x =
12
i=1
N
i
(x, Z)x
i
y =
12
i=1
N
i
(x, Z)y
i
(1)
where N
i
is the cubic serendipity shape function and
Fig. 1. Transformation of an arbitrary plate geometry into a square domain.
A.H. Sheikh, M. Mukhopadhyay / Computers and Structures 76 (2000) 765785 766
(x
i
, y
i
) is the coordinate of the ith boundary node of
the plate.
In the context of the spline nite strip method, the
mapped domain of the plate is divided into a number
of strips in one direction, say x as shown in Fig. 2.
The knots are taken along the nodal lines to adopt the
spline functions which serve as the displacement interp-
olation functions in the Z-direction. The nite element
shape functions are adopted on the other side, i.e., x-
direction. In this formulation, cubic B-spline functions
and Hermitian polynomials (cubic polynomials) are
adopted in the x- and Z-directions, respectively, for
both in-plane and transverse displacements. Thus, the
complete interpolation functions for the displacements
are the product of nite element shape functions and
spline functions.
Thus, the interpolation function of the displacement
components within a strip or a portion of it (Fig. 2) is
bicubic. In standard nite element analysis, a similar
situation may be attained by using the conforming rec-
tangular element of Bogner et al. [9], which has four
nodes at its four corners and each node contained four
degrees-of-freedom (w, dw/dx, dw/dy and d
2
w/dxy ). In
that case, a portion of a strip between two adjacent
knots as shown in Fig. 2 may be compared with the
above element where the degrees-of-freedom in each
knot/node is only two (w, dw/dx). This indicates that
the number of equations/nodal unknowns is half com-
pared to the standard nite element analysis. More-
over, the cubic splines give c
2
continuity in the
direction of Z which may be obtained by using a quin-
tic interpolation function considering curvature as the
additional degrees-of-freedom at the nodes. The con-
dition of c
2
continuity improves the order of accuracy
Fig. 2. Mesh division of the mapped domain of the plate geometry.
Fig. 3. Coordinate axes at a Gauss point of a curved stiener.
which indirectly helps to reduce the number of div-
isions in the direction of Z compared to the nite el-
ement analysis to attain the convergence. A further
reduction in the number of equations is obtained by
this elegant feature (c
2
continuity) of splines. In ad-
dition to the reduction of the problem size, the present
formulation is applicable to plates of general shapes
which cannot be achieved by the rectangular element
mentioned above [9]. In this context, an isoparametric
element may be used to achieve the generality, but the
advantage of reducing the problem size will not be
attained.
Now the displacement components may be expressed
as
{ f ] =
V
`
X
u(x, Z)
v(x, Z)
w(x, Z)
W
a
Y
=
P
R
[N
mu
]
[N
mv
]
[N
mw
]
Q
S
{d] =
P
R
[N
u
]
[N
v
]
[N
w
]
Q
S
[F]{d],
(2)
where
[N
u
] = [N
1
(
"
x) N
2
(
"
x) 0 0 0 0 N
3
(
"
x) N
4
(
"
x) 0 0 0 0] (3)
[N
v
] = [0 0 N
1
(
"
x) N
2
(
"
x) 0 0 0 0 N
3
(
"
x) N
4
(
"
x) 0 0] (4)
[N
w
] = [0 0 0 0 N
1
(
"
x) N
2
(
"
x) 0 0 0 0 N
3
(
"
x) N
4
(
"
x)] (5)
[F] =
P
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
R
[f
i
u
]
[f
i
u, x
]
[f
i
v
] 0
[f
i
v, x
]
[f
i
w
]
[f
i
w, x
]
[f
j
u
]
[f
j
u, x
]
[f
j
v
]
0 [f
j
v, x
]
[f
j
w
]
[f
j
w, x
]
Q
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
S
(6)
and
{d]
T
=
h
{u]
T
i
{u
, x
]
T
i
{v]
T
i
{v
, x
]
T
i
{w]
T
i
{w
, x
]
T
i
{u]
T
j
{u
, x
]
T
j
{v]
T
j
{v
, x
]
T
j
{w]
T
j
{w
, x
]
T
j
i
X (7)
Again, j=i + 1, [f
i
u
] = [f
1
f
0
f
1
f
2
, F F F, f
r
, F F F,
f
m
f
m1
] (the spline functions along the ith nodal
line corresponding to in-plane displacement u ), and
{u]
T
i
= {u
1
u
0
u
1
u
2
, F F F, u
r
, F F F, u
m
u
m1
]
i
(the
displacement parameters at the ith nodal line corre-
sponding to u ). This is similarly applicable to the
other nodal lines and displacement components.
The expressions of the polynomials of a cubic B-
spline, f
r
(at the rth knot) [3] may be written as
f
r
= 1a6h
3
V
b
b
b
b
`
b
b
b
b
X
(Z Z
r2
)
3
, Z
r2
ZZ
r1
h
3
3h
2
(Z Z
r1
) 3h(Z Z
r1
)
2
3(Z Z
r1
)
3
, Z
r1
ZZ
r
h
3
3h
2
(Z
r1
Z) 3h(Z
r1
Z)
2
3(Z
r1
Z)
3
, Z
r
ZZ
r1
(Z
r2
Z)
3
, Z
r1
ZZ
r2
W
b
b
b
b
a
b
b
b
b
Y
(8)
while the expressions of the Hermitian polynomials [8]
are
N
1
(
"
x) = 1 3
"
x
2
2
"
x
3
N
2
(
"
x) = b
"
x(1 2
"
x
"
x
2
)
N
3
(
"
x) = 3
"
x
2
"
x
3
N
4
(
"
x) = b
"
x(
"
x
2
"
x), (9)
where
"
x = (x x
i
)ab and b=x
i + 1
x
i
.
Once the displacement interpolation functions are
obtained, the nonlinear stiness matrices and the load
vector can be formed in a manner which is similar to
that followed in a nite element displacement model.
The present formulation is based on the total
Lagrangian coordinate system. In this context, the
approach proposed by Zienkiewicsz [8] is followed. As
its details are available in the text [8], the dierent
equations are directly used in their nal forms.
The governing equations are the equilibrium
equation and the incremental equation which are as
follows
[K
s
]{d] = {R] (10)
[K
T
]{dd] = {dR], (11)
where [K
s
] and [K
T
] are the secant and tangent stiness
matrices, respectively, {d } and {dd } are the displace-
ments vectors and its increment and {R} and {dR} are
the load vector and its increment.
The explicit expressions of the above stiness
matrices of an element/strip may be expressed as
[K
s
] =
dv
([B
0
]
T
[D][B
0
] 1a2[B
0
]
T
[D][B
L
] [B
L
]
T
[D][B
0
] 1a2[B
L
]
T
[D][B
L
])dv (12)
[K
T
] =
dv
([B
0
]
T
[D][B
0
] [B
0
]
T
[D][B
L
] [B
L
]
T
[D]
[B
0
] [B
L
]
T
[D][B
L
] [G ]
T
[S][G ])dv, (13)
where [D] is the rigidity matrix, [S] is the initial stress
matrix, [B
0
] is the linear strain matrix, and [B
L
] is the
nonlinear strain matrix.
Now the nonlinear strain matrix in the above
equations may be expressed as
[B
L
] = [A][G ], (14)
where [A] is dependent on displacements but [G] is
free from that.
The element stiness matrix of a stiened plate el-
ement consists of the contribution of the plate and the
stiener. The dierent matrices mentioned above corre-
sponding to the plate and the stiener are as follows.
2.1. A plate strip
The middle plane of the plate is taken as the refer-
ence plane. In addition to the usual transverse displa-
cement in the reference plane, there will be in-plane
displacements due to the eect of large deection and
stiener eccentricity. The generalised stressstrain re-
lation of a plate strip may be written as
{s] = [D]{E], (15)
where the stress resultant vector is
{s]
T
= {N
x
N
y
N
xy
M
x
M
y
M
xy
], (16)
the rigidity matrix is
[D] =
P
T
T
T
T
T
T
R
D
xA
D
1A
D
1A
D
yA
D
xyA
D
xF
D
1F
D
1F
D
yF
D
xyF
Q
U
U
U
U
U
U
S
(17)
and the generalised straindisplacement relationship is
{E] =
V
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
`
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
X
duadx
dvady
duady dvadx
F F F
d
2
wadx
2
d
2
wady
2
2d
2
wadx dy
W
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
a
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
Y
V
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
`
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
X
1a2(dwadx)
2
1a2(dwady)
2
dwadx dwady
F F F
0
0
0
W
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
a
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
Y
= {E
0
] {E
L
]X (18)
Using the interpolation functions of the displacement
components (2), the linear strain vector may be written
as
{E
0
] = [B
0
]{d], (19)
where
[B
0
] =
P
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
R
[N
mu
]
, x
[N
mv
]
, y
[N
mu
]
, y
[N
mv
]
, x
[N
mw
]
, xx
[N
mw
]
, yy
2[N
mw
]
, xy
Q
U
U
U
U
U
U
U
S
X (20)
In the above equations, the derivatives are with respect
to x and y but the interpolation functions for the
dierent displacement components are functions of x
and Z. In this context, Eq. (1) which correlates the
structures axes system xy and the mapped axes sys-
tem xZ is used to carry out the above derivatives
through proper coordinate transformation.
Now the nonlinear strain vector may be written as
{E
L
] =
1
2
P
T
T
T
T
T
T
R
dwadx 0
0 dwady
dwady dwadx
0 0
0 0
0 0
Q
U
U
U
U
U
U
S
&
dwadx
dwady
'
=
1
2
[A]{y]X (21)
Using the displacement interpolation functions (2), the
above matrices may be expressed as
[A] =
P
T
T
T
T
T
T
R
[N
mw
]
, x
{d] 0
0 [N
mw
]
, y
{d]
[N
mw
]
, y
{d] [N
mw
]
, x
{d]
0 0
0 0
0 0
Q
U
U
U
U
U
U
S
(22)
and
{y] = [G ]{d], (23)
where
[G ] =
[N
mw
]
, x
[N
mw
]
, y
!
X (24)
For the plate strip, the initial stress matrix is
[S] =
N
x
N
xy
N
xy
N
y
!
X (25)
As the formulation is done with the generalised stress
strain relationship, the eect corresponding to the
direction of plate thickness is already taken care of in
the rigidity matrix. Thus, the integrations involved in
the generation of stiness matrices are carried out over
the area. Eq. (1) is again used to carry out an inte-
gration of a function, say f(x, Z) as
f (x, Z)dx dy =
f (x, Z) [ J [ dx dZ, (26)

where the Jacobian is
[ J [=
dxadx dyadx
dxadZ dyadZ
X (27)
2.2. A stiener having arbitrary orientation
A curved eccentric stiener placed within a plate
strip represents the most general situation of a stiener
which is chosen for the derivation. The middle plane
of the plate is again the reference plane. The stiener
is modelled using the same displacement interpolation
functions of the plate strip which gives the stiness
matrix of the stiener in terms of nodal parameters of
the plate strip. This not only ensures compatibility
between the stiener and the plate, but also avoids the
incorporation of additional degrees-of-freedom for the
stiener element. The properties of the stiener are
taken along the direction of its axis which changes
from point to point for a curved stiener as shown in
Fig. 3. The integrations involved in the evaluation of
the stiness matrices are carried out numerically using
a Gaussian quadrature integration scheme where the
dierent quantities are evaluated at the Gaussian inte-
gration point. As the direction of the stiener axis/tan-
gent at these points is dierent from the global/
structural axis system xy, it gives results in a local
axis system which is converted afterwards into the glo-
bal axis system xy. In Fig. 3, a local axis system x'
y' at a Gauss point corresponding to the direction of
the stiener axis is shown which makes an angle a
with the global axis system xy. The relationship
between these two axes systems may be written as
x = x
/
cos a y
/
sin a
y = x
/
sin a y
/
cos aX (28)
Again, the local displacement parameters may be
expressed in terms of global displacement parameters
as
u
/
= u cos a v sin a
v
/
= v cos a u sin a
w
/
= wX (29)
The detailed derivation of the stiener has been pre-
sented in earlier works of the authors [6,7] where the
scope of the work was limited within the range of lin-
ear analysis. Thus, the additional features needed to in-
corporate the eect of large deection are highlighted
only. In a stiened plate, the eccentricity of the stif-
fener proves coupling between the membrane and ex-
ural actions. The eect of large deection is also
responsible for this coupling as it contributes ad-
ditional term dependent on transverse displacement in
the axial strain component.
For a stiener element, the stress resultant vector in
its local axes system is
{s]
T
= {N
s
M
s
T
s
], (30)
the corresponding rigidity matrix is
[D] =
P
R
EA
s
ES
s
0
ES
s
EI
s
0
0 0 GJ
s
Q
S
(31)
and the generalised strain vector is
{E] =
V
b
b
`
b
b
X
du
/
adx
/
F F F
d
2
wadx
/ 2
d
2
wadx
/
dy
/
W
b
b
a
b
b
Y
V
b
b
b
`
b
b
b
X
1a2(dwadx
/
)
2
F F F
0
0
W
b
b
b
a
b
b
b
Y
X (32)
With the help of Eqs. (2) and (29), the linear strain
vector may be expressed as
{E
0
] = [B
0
]{d], (33)
where
[B
0
] =
P
R
[N
mu
]
, x
/ cos a [N
mv
]
, x
/ sin a
[N
mw
]
, x
/
x
/
[N
mw
]
, y
/
y
/
Q
S
X (34)
The derivatives in the above matrix are calculated with
the help of Eqs. (2) and (28) which correlate the dier-
ent axes system.
Now the nonlinear strain vector may be written as
{E
L
] =
1
2
P
R
dwadx
/
0
0
Q
S
{dwadx
/
] =
1
2
[A]{y]X (35)
Using the displacement interpolation functions (2), the
above matrices may be expressed as
[A] =
P
R
[N
mw
]
, x
/ {d]
0
0
Q
S
(36)
and
{y] = [G ]{d], (37)
where
[G ] = [N
mw
]
, x
/ X (38)
Here the initial stress matrix is
[S] = [N
s
]X (39)
As the generalised stressstrain relationship is taken
for the stiener, the eect corresponding to the direc-
tion of width and depth of the stiener is already con-
sidered in its rigidity matrix. Thus, the integrations
involved in the generation of stiness matrices are car-
ried out along the stiener axis. The integration of a
function, say f(x, Z ) may be expressed as
f (x, Z)dx
/
=
f (x, Z) [ J
st
[ dl, (40)
where [ J
st
[ is the Jacobian of the stiener which is the
ratio of actual length to mapped length of the stiener
within the plate strip. l is the direction of the stiener
axis in the mapped plane.
2.3. Load vector
A consistent formulation is made for the load vector
which may be written as
{R] =
[N
mw
]
T
q [ J [ dx dZ, (41)
where q is the intensity of load distributed on the plate
skin.
2.4. Boundary conditions
The boundary conditions are attained through
proper amendment of the local splines in the Z-direc-
tion and the standard nite element technique in the x-
direction [3].
3. Numerical examples and discussions
In this section, the proposed technique is validated
through the following numerical examples. The itera-
tive process involved in the solution of these examples
are continued until the convergence is attained. In this
context, the criterion adopted is the total residual
norm which may be written as
(c
T
c)a({R]
T
{R]) 100g, (42)
where g is the tolerance for the convergence and it is
taken as 0.1% in all the examples. The mesh division
used in an example is decided after solving the example
with a dierent mesh size for its rst load level so as
to assure the convergence with respect to the mesh div-
ision. This has been followed in all the examples.
3.1. A square plate
The square clamped plate has been used by a large
number of investigators to study the large deection
behaviour of thin plates. This problem is investigated
by the proposed method using a 12 10 mesh (that is
12 strips and 10 divisions in a nodal line). The deec-
tion and the normal stress at the plate centre and also
the normal stress at the centre of an edge obtained by
the proposed method are presented in Tables 13 with
those of other investigators for comparison. The stress
at the plate centre is taken as the extreme bottom bre
in a direction parallel to any one edge and the stress at
the centre of an edge is taken at the top extreme bre
in a direction perpendicular to that edge. The stresses
are obtained by combining the contributions of the
bending moment and the membrane forces. The ana-
lytical thin plate solution for the problem is given by
Levy [10] which is referred to as the `exact' solution.
Results obtained by the two nite element models
[9,11] based on the assumptions of thin plate theory
are considered. One of them employs the IronsRazza-
que non-conforming triangular element [11] with linear
in-plane displacement (IR) and the other uses the slope
conforming rectangular element of Bogner et al. [9]
with parabolic in-plane behaviour (BFS). Pica et al.
Table 1
Deection, w/h at the centre of the clamped square plate
Load qa
4
/Et
4
Exact [10] Linear in-plane behaviour Higher-order in-plane behaviour
RI [11] CD LN [12] BFS [9] Present QS [12]
17.79 0.237 0.2387 0.2361 0.2349 0.2361 0.2362 0.2351
38.3 0.471 0.4717 0.4681 0.4705 0.4717 0.4686 0.4673
63.4 0.695 0.6916 0.6887 0.6990 0.6900 0.6902 0.6887
95.0 0.912 0.9008 0.8992 0.9191 0.9012 0.9016 0.9003
134.9 1.121 1.1025 1.1018 1.1318 1.1047 1.1052 1.1041
184.0 1.323 1.2961 1.2956 1.3350 1.2992 1.2999 1.2990
245.0 1.521 1.4879 1.4866 1.5347 1.4908 1.4919 1.4913
318.0 1.714 1.6744 1.6714 1.7439 1.6761 1.6776 1.6774
402.0 1.902 1.8529 1.8474 1.9109 1.8524 1.8544 1.8682
Table 2
Stress, sa
2
/(Eh
2
) at the centre of a clamped square plate
Load qa
4
/Et
4
17.79 2.6 2.6890 2.5778 2.6274 2.6328 2.5894 2.6571
38.3 5.2 5.4140 5.3290 5.5435 5.4847 5.3725 5.5137
63.4 8.0 8.0205 8.0606 8.5570 8.3372 8.1445 8.3528
95.0 11.1 10.521 10.733 11.575 11.127 10.854 11.115
134.9 13.3 12.971 13.367 14.567 13.866 13.518 13.817
184.0 15.9 15.390 15.965 17.493 16.552 16.137 16.431
245.0 19.2 17.885 18.633 20.446 19.296 18.819 19.160
318.0 21.9 20.438 21.350 23.605 22.081 21.550 21.902
402.0 25.1 23.020 24.085 26.318 24.881 24.301 24.805
[12] have also analysed the plate using linear (LN) and
quadratic (QS) serendipity Mindlin elements. Cheung
and Dashan [13] have applied the spline nite strip
method to study the large deection behaviour of bare
plates and they have studied only the deection. The
interpolation functions for the displacements used by
Cheung and Dashan [13] are similar to the present
approach except for the nite element shape functions
for the in-plane displacements which are linear. The
problem is again solved according to Cheung and
Dashan [13] to evaluate both the deection and stres-
ses (CD). The tables show that the proposed method
gives good results for the deection and stresses
whereas the CD yields slightly poorer results for stres-
ses. This is due to the linear in-plane behaviour which
is also observed with the nite element method [11,12].
The same plate is again analysed with simply sup-
ported boundary conditions using a 12 10 mesh. The
deection and the normal stress at the centre of the
plate obtained by the proposed method are compared
with those of Rushton [14] and QS [12] in Table 4
which indicates that the results agree well. The stress is
taken at the bottom extreme bre in a direction paral-
lel to any one of the plate edges and it is combined
stress considering the bending moment and membrane
force.
3.2. A circular plate
A clamped circular plate is analysed by the proposed
approach using a 12 10 mesh. The problem is solved
for two loading conditions, one is a uniformly distribu-
ted load (UDL) and the other is a central point load.
The deection and normal stress at the plate centre
and also the normal stress at the edge obtained in the
present analysis are compared with the results of Weil
and Newmark [15] and QS [12] in Table 5 for the uni-
formly distributed load. In Table 6, the central deec-
tion and the edge stress are compared with those of
Schmidt [16] and QS [12] for the central point load.
The stress is taken at the extreme bottom bre in the
radial direction. Combined eect of the bending
moment and the membrane force are taken into
account for the stress computation. Results compare
satisfactorily.
3.3. An annular sector plate
An annular sector plate is analysed by the proposed
Table 3
Stress, sa
2
/(Eh
2
) at the centre of an edge of a clamped square plate
Load qa
4
/Et
4
17.79 5.48 5.2523 5.3331 3.3663 5.2915 5.4042 5.3256
38.3 11.52 10.807 11.043 7.1122 11.137 11.347 11.155
63.4 18.03 16.680 17.155 11.198 17.556 17.886 17.515
95.0 25.32 23.001 23.767 15.639 24.649 25.166 24.522
134.9 33.50 29.875 30.944 20.461 32.485 33.313 32.278
184.0 42.40 37.257 38.588 25.597 40.961 42.274 40.710
245.0 52.80 45.357 46.864 31.172 50.251 52.306 50.043
318.0 63.90 54.011 55.554 37.459 60.097 63.206 60.064
402.0 75.80 63.000 64.404 43.121 70.190 74.688 70.897
Table 4
Deection and stress at the centre of a simply supported square plate
Load qa
4
/Et
4
Central deection, w/t Central stress, sa
2
/(Et
2
)
Exact [14] Present QS [12] Exact [14] Present QS [12]
9.16 0.335 0.3436 0.3478 2.46 2.6084 2.6214
36.6 0.818 0.8094 0.8184 6.90 6.9790 7.0026
146.5 1.47 1.4538 1.4655 14.50 14.652 14.644
586.0 2.40 2.3750 2.3927 30.00 30.186 30.183
2344.0 3.83 3.7864 3.8124 65.20 65.580 65.673
9377.0 6.07 6.0511 6.0521 148.3 149.16 149.66
Table 5
Deection and stresses of a circular plate under UDL
Load qa
4
/Et
4
Central deection w/t Central stress sa
2
/(Et
2
) Edge stress sa
2
/(Et
2
)
Exact [15] Present QS [12] Exact [15] Present QS [12] Exact [15] Present QS [12]
1.0 0.169 0.1684 0.1614 0.502 0.5163 0.5018 0.772 0.7818 0.7831
2.0 0.323 0.3236 0.3116 0.986 1.0282 1.0044 1.550 1.5544 1.5550
3.0 0.457 0.4598 0.4453 1.421 1.4979 1.4724 2.302 2.2949 2.2924
6.0 0.761 0.7716 0.7566 2.477 2.5984 2.6070 4.324 4.2961 4.2639
10.0 1.035 1.0535 1.0417 3.542 3.6577 3.6774 6.517 6.5875 6.4692
15.0 1.279 1.3038 1.2950 4.622 4.6156 4.6595 8.694 9.0903 8.8125
Table 6
Deection and stress of a circular plate under the point load at the plate centre
Load Pa
2
/Et
4
Central deection, w/t Edge stress, sa
2
/(Et
2
)
Exact [16] Present QS [12] Exact [16] Present QS [12]
1.0 0.2130 0.2121 0.2044 0.4858 0.5011 0.5318
2.0 0.4052 0.4033 0.3908 0.9592 0.9885 1.0478
3.0 0.5705 0.5675 0.5528 1.3974 1.4391 1.5240
4.0 0.7123 0.7081 0.6930 1.7988 1.8512 1.9583
5.0 0.8354 0.8299 0.8152 2.1679 2.2299 2.3553
6.0 0.9442 0.9375 0.9237 2.5110 2.5816 2.7221
Table 7
Deection and moments at the centre of an annular sector plate (r
i
/r
o
=0.5, n=0.3)
a
Load qa
4
Central deection w/t Bending moment M
r
r
2
0
a(Et
4
) Bending moment M
y
r
2
0
a(Et
4
)
Ref. [17] Ref. [18] Present Ref. [17] Ref. [18] Present Ref. [17] Ref. [18] Present
666.7 0.8069 0.8344 0.7649 4.372 4.320 4.365 2.136 2.137 2.108
1333.3 1.2090 1.2298 1.1452 6.077 5.940 6.065 2.799 2.796 2.744
2666.7 1.6870 1.6665 1.5908 7.716 7.376 7.674 3.359 3.340 3.271
4000.0 2.0080 1.9497 1.8872 8.668 8.190 8.596 3.681 3.650 3.580
a
r
i
inner radius of the plate, r
o
outer radius of the plate and a=(r
o
r
i
).
Table 8
Membrane forces at the centre of an annular sector plate (r
i
/r
o
=0.5, n=0.3)
a
qa
4
/Et
4
N
r
r
2
0
a(Et
3
) N
y
r
2
0
a(Et
3
)
Ref. [17] Ref. [18] Present Ref. [17] Ref. [18] Present
666.7 6.5390 5.3800 6.5812 4.0070 4.6100 4.0236
1333.3 14.450 12.516 14.609 8.2820 10.353 8.9676
2666.7 27.710 25,430 28.065 16.880 19.956 17.338
4000.0 39.010 36.490 39.537 23.170 27.680 24.512
a
r
i
inner radius of the plate, r
o
outer radius of the plate and a=(r
o
r
i
).
Fig. 4. Simply supported rectangular orthotropic plate.
Fig. 5. Deection at the centre of an orthotropic plate.
Fig. 6. Curvature at the centre of an orthotropic plate.
Fig. 7. Axial force at the centre of an orthotropic plate.
Table 9
Deection at A, B and C of the stiened annular sector plate
Sector angle Method Point Load level (N/cm
2
)
25 50 75 100 125 150
y=08 SFSM
a
A 3.745 6.449 8.526 10.251 11.747 13.076
B 1.336 2.614 3.805 4.918 5.962 6.946
C 1.336 2.614 3.805 4.918 5.962 6.946
FEM
b
A 3.794 6.434 8.639 10.385 11.895 13.237
B 1.384 2.703 3.926 5.064 6.129 7.128
C 1.384 2.703 3.926 5.064 6.129 7.128
y=308 SFSM A 3.834 6.619 8.742 10.487 11.986 13.317
B 0.871 1.705 2.494 3.246 3.963 4.651
C 2.211 4.165 5.879 7.410 8.797 10.067
FEM A 3.883 6.701 8.854 10.620 12.136 13.473
B 0.909 1.781 2.605 3.397 4.133 4.846
C 2.276 4.278 6.025 7.577 8.977 10.253
y=458 SFMS A 3.929 6.793 8.956 10.717 12.217 13.536
B 0.731 1.419 2.063 2.675 3.261 3.823
C 2.815 5.151 7.127 8.841 10.363 11.735
FEM A 3.982 6.882 9.071 10.851 12.368 13.670
B 0.767 1.490 2.170 2.815 3.431 4.022
C 2.899 5.295 7.230 9.030 10.530 11.935
a
SFSM Spline nite strip method.
b
FEM Finite element method.
Fig. 8. Two-bay rectangular stiened plate.
Fig. 9. Deection at A of a two-bay stiened plate.
Fig. 10. Deection at B of a two-bay stiened plate.
Fig. 11. Stress at A of a two-bay stiened plate.
Fig. 12. Stress at B of a two-bay stiened plate.
Fig. 13. Five-bay DRES stiened panel.
Fig. 14. Deection at A of the DRES stiened panel.
Fig. 15. Moment M
x
at A of the DRES stiened panel.
Fig. 16. Moment M
y
at A of the DRES stiened panel.
Fig. 17. Stress at B of the DRES stiened panel.
method using a 12 10 mesh to study the stress resul-
tants. The sector angle of the plate is 608 and the
boundaries are clamped all around. Salehi and Turvey
[17] have studied the plate using a nite dierent im-
plementation of the dynamic relaxation algorithm. It
has also been solved by Srinivasan and Thiruvenkata-
chari [18] using the integral equation method. The
deection, bending moments and membrane forces at
the centre of the plate obtained by the present analysis
are presented along with those of others [17,18] in
Tables 7 and 8. The Tables indicate that the results
agree well in all cases except the membrane forces
obtained by Srinivasan and Thiruvenkatachari [18].
They [18] have obtained lower values of the membrane
forces in the radial direction and higher values in the
circumferential direction compared to those obtained
by Salehi and Turvey [17] and also the present method.
In Ref. [18], the results are presented for dierent
mesh divisions where a wide variation of the results
are found which indicates that the method of Sriniva-
san and Thiruvenkatachari [18] to be less accurate.
3.4. A simply supported rectangular orthotropic plate
Stiened plates are often modelled as orthotropic
plates. As such, an example of an orthotropic plate is
presented here. Basu and Chapman [19] have investi-
gated the large deection behaviour of orthotropic
plates using the nite dierence method. They have
converted the dierential equation and the boundary
conditions into non-dimensional forms and presented
their results accordingly. An example of a simply sup-
ported orthotropic plate as shown in Fig. 4, is analysed
by the proposed method using a 12 10 mesh. The
deection, curvature and axial force obtained by the
proposed method are compared with those of Basu
and Chapman [19] in Figs. 57. The agreement
between the results is found to be very satisfactory.
3.5. A two-bay rectangular stiened plate
A clamped two-bay stiened plate as shown in
Fig. 8, is analysed by the spline nite strip method.
Half of the plate has been analysed using a 10 10
mesh. Koko and Olson [20] have studied the stiened
Fig. 18. Skew plate with equispaced stieners in both direc-
tions.
Fig. 19. Deection at the centre of a stiened skew plate.
plate using a superelement model and also by the semi-
analytical nite strip method. This is also solved by
Rao [21] using the isoparametric quadratic bending el-
ement. The deection at the plate centre (A) and panel
centre (B) obtained in the present analysis are pre-
sented in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively, with those of
Koko and Olson [20] and Rao [21]. Also the normal
stresses in the x-direction of the plate skin obtained by
combining the eect of the membrane force and the
bending moment at the top extreme bre at A and at
the bottom extreme bre at B are compared with Rao
[21] in Figs. 11 and 12. The present results agree better
with Rao [21] than others.
3.6. A ve-bay DRES stiened panel
A rectangular eccentrically stiened plate (Fig. 13)
constructed at the Defense Research Establishment,
Sueld, Canada (DRES) [22] has been analysed by
Koko and Olson [20] using a superelement model and
also the general purpose computer program ADINA
[23]. The structure has also been analyzed by Rao [21]
using an isoparametric quadratic bending element.
Half of the plate has been analysed by the proposed
method using a 10 10 mesh. The deection and
bending moments obtained at the centre of the plate
(A) are presented in Figs. 1416 along with those of
Koko and Olson [20] and Rao [21]. Also, the normal
stress in the x-direction of the plate skin obtained by
combining the eect of the membrane force and the
bending moment at the top extreme bre at B (Fig. 13)
is compared with the result of Rao [21] in Fig. 17. The
results agree reasonably well with Rao's [21]. The
deection values compare well with those by superele-
ment M
1
as shown in Fig. 14.
3.7. A stiened skew plate
Srinivasan and Ramachandran [24] have studied the
large deection behaviour of clamped skew plates stif-
fened by identical and equispaced stieners placed
along the two skew coordinate directions. They [24]
have idealised the structure as an equivalent anisotro-
pic bare plate and presented results for dierent values
of (h
-
/h ) which is the ratio of the volume of plate skin
and total volume of the stiened plate system. A stif-
fened plate as shown in Fig. 18 is taken for the present
analysis which has a value of 1.5 for the parameter (h
-
/
h ). Five panels in both the directions are considered
for the present analysis which is carried out using a 10
10 mesh. The central deection obtained by the
spline nite strip method is compared with that of Sri-
nivasan and Ramachandran [24] in Fig. 19. The plate
is again solved for 08 skew angle, i.e., a square plate
and the deection obtained for the plate centre is com-
pared in Fig. 20. The results agree well.
3.8. A stiened annular sector plate
The large deection behaviour of an annular sector
Fig. 20. Deection at the centre of a rectangular stiened plate.
plate having two circumferential stieners as shown in
Fig. 21 is studied. The plate is clamped at all the edges
and it is subjected to uniformly distributed loading.
The problem is studied for three dierent values of sec-
tor angle (y=0, 30 and 458) where the length of the
circumferential line c'd' (Fig. 21) is 60 cm in all cases.
The plate has been analysed by the proposed method
using a mesh of 14 8 and the values of deection
obtained at A, B and C (Fig. 21) are presented in
Table 9 for dierent load levels. For the sake of com-
parison, a nite element code based on nine noded iso-
parametric elements is written which is used to analyse
the structure using a mesh of 16 10 and the results
obtained are presented in Table 9. The degrees-of-free-
dom involved in the solution of the present problem is
990 if the spline nite strip method is used, while it is
3465 for the nite element analysis. This clearly indi-
cates the potential of the spline nite strip method
over the standard nite element analysis. The nite el-
ement results are marginally higher than the results
obtained by the proposed method. This is expected
due to the incorporation of shear deformation in the
nite element analysis which is not made in the spline
nite strip method.
4. Conclusions
The spline nite strip method is extended to the geo-
metric nonlinear analysis of stiened plates of any
shape where the stieners may have any arbitrary
orientation. The formulation is done in the total
Lagrangian coordinate system. The nonlinear govern-
ing equations are solved iteratively following the New-
Fig. 21. Stiened annular sector plate.
tonRaphson method. The stiener element is ele-
gantly modelled so that it may lie anywhere within a
plate strip and need not follow the nodal lines. This
has increased exibility in the mesh generation of the
structure. With the example of a bare plate, improve-
ment in the performance of the spline nite strip
method in the context of the present problem over its
earlier attempt where linear in-plane behaviour has
been considered, is demonstrated. Examples of stif-
fened plates as available in the literature are carried
out by the proposed technique and the results obtained
are compared with those obtained by other investi-
gators. In most of the cases, the results are found to
agree well which reects the accuracy and power of the
proposed approach.
References
[1] Satsangi SK, Mukhopadhyay M. A review of static
analysis of stiened plates. Journal of Structural
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[2] Cheung YK. Finite strip method in structural analysis.
Pergamon Press, 1976.
[3] Cheung YK, Fan SC, Wu CQ. Spline nite strip in struc-
tural analysis. In: Proceedings of the International
Conference on Finite Elements, Shanghai, 1982. pp. 704
9.
[4] Chen MJ, Tham LG, Cheung YK. Spline nite strip for
parallelogram plate. In: Proceedings of the International
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[5] Li WY, Cheung YK, Tham LG. Spline nite strip analy-
sis of general plates. Journal of the Engineering
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[6] Sheikh AH, Mukhopadhyay M. Analysis of stiened
plate with arbitrary planform by the general spline
nite strip method. Computers and Structures
1992;42:5763.
[7] Sheikh AH, Mukhopadhyay M. Free vibration analysis
of stiened plate with arbitrary planform by the general
spline nite strip method. Journal of Sound and
Vibration 1993;42:14764.
[8] Zienkiewicz OC, Taylor RL. The nite element method.
1, 4th ed. McGraw-Hill New York, 1989.
[9] Levy S. Square plate with clamped edges under normal
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[10] Razzaque A. Program for triangular bending element
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the use of interpolation formulae. In: Proceedings
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geometrically nonlinear plate behaviour using a Mindlin
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[13] Cheung YK, Dashan Zhu. Large deection analysis of
arbitrary shaped thin plates. Computers and Structures
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[14] Rushton KR. Large deection of plates with initial cur-
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[15] Weil NA, Newmark NM. Large deections of elliptical
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[18] Srinivasan RS, Thiruvenkatachari V. Non-linear bending
of annular sector plates using a matrix method.
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Geometric nonlinear analysis of stiened plates by the

spline nite strip method

f (x, Z) [ J [ dx dZ, (26)

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