Continuous/discontinuous finite element modelling of Kirchhoff plate structures in R3 using tangential differential calculus

Abstract

We employ surface differential calculus to derive models for Kirchhoff plates including in-plane membrane deformations. We also extend our formulation to structures of plates. For solving the resulting set of partial differential equations, we employ a finite element method based on elements that are continuous for the displacements and discontinuous for the rotations, using C0-elements for the discretisation of the plate as well as for the membrane deformations. Key to the formulation of the method is a convenient definition of jumps and averages of forms that are d-linear in terms of the element edge normals.