Plastic Creep Bending Analysis of Plates

Abstract

The finite element method is used to solve the nonlinear problem of creep bending of a plate. The initial strain approach has been adapted to solve the resulting nonlinear simultaneous equations. The algorithm leads to a time incremental set of equations. An isoparametric thick plate element was used. Good agreement was obtained between the present work and some of the available literature for plates with and without elastic foundations. A load bearing test, on a fresh water ice cover, was carried out and good agreement again was noted between the field data and the numerical model.