A new triangular stiffened plate element for laminate analysis

A new stiffened plate element for the analysis of laminated stiffened plates has been presented. The basic plate element is a combination of Allmanʹs plane stress triangular element and discrete Kirchhoff–Mindlin plate bending element. The stiffened plate element has been developed to include the effects of transverse shear. The element can accommodate any number of arbitrarily oriented stiffeners and is completely free from the usual constraints on the mesh division of the plates. The element has no problems associated with shear locking — a phenomenon usually encountered in isoparametric elements. Static and free vibration analyses of laminated stiffened plates have been carried out with this element and the results are compared with those published.