Shear correction for Mindlin type plate and shell elements

In this paper, two shear correction methods, which can guarantee good accuracy, suitable for different materials and easy to implement, are proposed for the first-order theory based plate and shell elements. The general variational principles based on the thermodynamic potentials are first derived, to provide a uniform frame for the different material non-linearity. Then, the two shear correction methods are derived from the obtained general variational principles using the assumed strain and assumed stress methods, respectively. The shear correction factors (SCF) for homogeneous elastic materials are evaluated using the two methods, and the same result of 0.8 is obtained. The proposed shear correction method is then applied to an elastic-linear hardening plastic deep beam for verification, and the conformable result is obtained as compared with the plane strain result. Copyright q 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd