Special virtual fields for the direct determination of material parameters with the virtual fields method. 3. Application to the bending rigidities of anisotropic plates

This paper deals with the direct identification of bending rigidities of thin anisotropic plates. These parameters are extracted from an heterogeneous strain field which takes place onto the top surface of a bent plate. The loading conditions are such that no closed-form solution is available for the deflection/slope/curvature fields. The procedure presently used is the virtual fields method with "special" virtual fields. It is shown that the unknown parameters are directly extracted with this method since no iterative calculations are required. The parameters are in fact directly equal to the virtual work of the applied loading with the special virtual displacement fields. The headlines of the method are recalled in the first part of the paper. They are then applied in the case of anisotropic bent plates. The accuracy and the stability of the procedure are finally discussed through some relevant examples.