Elastic-Plastic Plate Bending with Constant Curvature Elements

A constant curvature triangular plate bending element is developed for the elastic-plastic bending of laterally loaded plates. First, a constant curvature element is developed which eliminates the mid-side degrees of freedom found in elements of previous investigations. Next, the convergence of this modified constant curvature element to elastic theoretical results is demonstrated for several plates. Finally, this element is used to predict the elastic-plastic behavior of these plates. Good agreement is indicated with the collapse load for ideally plastic plates.