GENERAL FORMULATION OF DISCRETE KIRCHHOFF STRIP ELEMENTS WITH CONDENSED DISPLACEMENT FUNCTIONS

Abstract

Sub-parametric strip elements based on the discrete Kirchhoff theory were proposed for the bending analysis of thin plates with arbitrary shape. In this paper, a general formulation of the above-mentioned strips is shown by the use of new condensed displacement functions, in which the static condensation of stiffness matrices is not required. The new functions are derived from an analytical elimination of the internal degrees of freedom in the displacement functions of the parent elements using the Kirchhoff constraint conditions. The present method contains the ordinary bending strip elements and the bending analysis of thin plates with arbitrary shape could be easily performed by much the same algorithm as in the common finite strip methods.