Refined triangular discrete Kirchhoff plate element for thin plate bending, vibration and buckling analysis

A reÞned triangular discrete Kirchho¤ thin plate bending element RDKT which can be used to improve the original triangular discrete Kirchho¤ thin plate bending element DKT is presented. In order to improve the accuracy of the analysis a simple explicit expression of a reÞned constant strain matrix with an adjustable constant can be introduced into its formulation. The new element displacement function can be used to formulate a mass matrix called combined mass matrix for calculation of the natural frequency and in the same way a combined geometric sti¤ness matrix can be obtained for buckling analysis. Numerical examples are presented to show that the present methods indeed, can improve the accuracy of thin plate bending, vibration and buckling analysis.