A generalized theory for bending of thick isotropic rectangular plates

Abstract

Several refined theories of plates have been developed in the recent decade. All such theories have attempted to incorporate the effects of tranverse shear stresses and tranverse normal stress and strain which become important as the ratio of the plate thickness to characteristic length (h/L) increases. The theory developed in this dissertation belongs to this category, except that it differs in that generalized forms of stress are assumed initially, which leads to the formulation of a more accurate theory of bending of hick plates.

Upon comparison of the results from this present work with the exact solution and other previous refined theories, the present theory yields results closest to the exact solution for both deflection w and inplane stresses, up to a ratio of h/L as high as 3.0 for the case of cylindrical bending, and up to a ratio of h?l as high as 1.0 for the case of rectangular plates.