A C0 continuous mixed FE formulation for bending of laminated composite plates based on unified HSDT (Q6541659)

The mixed finite element method (MFEM) is used for analysis of laminated composite plates. The Hellinger-Reissner variational principle is employed for construction of MFEM. Displacements and stresses are obtained directly from the global system of equations of MFEM. The independent interpolation of kinematic factors and stresses allows to overcome the shear-locking problem and ensure continuity requirement. Results of numerical examples shown convergence of solutions for displacements and stresses under various boundary conditions and material configurations. Test cases are considered for both the thin and thick plates subjected to sinusoidal and uniformly distributed loads. It is demonstrated that the proposed MFEM gives not only displacements but stress components with high accuracy while being computationally efficient.