LAUSR

An improved three-node triangular plate finite element is presented for plate analysis. The key idea is to enhance the performance of the original MITC3 element with an edge-based strain smoothing technique. To address this derivation, the MITC3 is explicitly formulated to obtain constant gradient matrices. All strain fields are then averaged over edge-based integration domains defined by two nodes of an element’s edge and the centroid(s) of element(s) sharing the element’s edge. A stabilized coefficient factor is also used for the shearing stiffness. We name this element as ES-MITC3, and it is then employed to analyze various plate problems under static loading and free vibration. Numerical results show that the ES-MITC3 element is free of “shear locking” and performs well for static and vibration behaviors. The present element exhibits a good competitor with other several existing three-node triangular plate elements, even the four-node MITC4 element.