Loc V. Tran

An Edge-Based Smoothed Discrete Shear Gap Method Using the C0-Type Higher-Order Shear Deformation Theory for Analysis of Laminated Composite Plates

The edge-based smoothing discrete shear gap method (ES-DSG3) using three-node triangular elements is combined with a C0-type higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) to give a new linear triangular plate element for static, free vibration, and buckling analyses of laminated composite plates. In the ES-DSG3, only the linear approximation is necessary, and the discrete shear gap method (DSG) for triangular plate elements is used to avoid the shear locking and spurious zero energy modes. In addition, the stiffness matrices are calculated relying on smoothing domains associated with the edges of the triangular elements through an edge-based strain smoothing technique. Using the C0-type HSDT, the shear correction factors in the original ES-DSG3 can be removed and replaced by two additional degrees of freedom at each node. The numerical examples demonstrated that the ES-DSG3 show remarkably excellent performance compared to several other published elements in the literature.