Analysis of Thin Plates Using Applied Element Method

Abstract

Applied Element Method (AEM) is a numerical method for structural analysis developed in the year 1997. It is very efficient in terms of accuracy, memory requirements and processing time. It is able to capture the structural behaviour up to collapse. AEM is extended to the analysis of thin plates in this paper. Few modifications are made in the conventional applied element to bring in the behaviour of thin plates. Convergence study is done and is compared with that of Finite Element Method (FEM). The computational time of AEM and FEM are also compared. The displacement and force resultants of few classical problems are determined. This is done for plates with different length to width ratios. The deflection, bending moments and shear forces are close to that of Classical Plate Theory. The complementary shear stress distribution is parabolic across the depth and the normal stress distribution is linear. Hence, it is found that AEM is effective for the analysis of thin plates.