A conforming triangular finite element plate bending solution

A conforming plate bending solution using simple polynomial deflection functions of third‐degree inside each triangular element is presented. In order to avoid normal slope discontinuities along the sides of the elements, the plate displacement parameters are subjected to ‘slope continuity conditions’ acting as constraints to the minimum potential energy problem. This is then solved by the classical method of Lagrange introducing multipliers as new auxiliary variables. If a special variational formulation of the problem is used, it can be shown that the Lagrangean multipliers are generalized stress parameters. The suggested solution is therefore basically a ‘mixed’ solution, the unknown variables of the problem being both displacement and stress parameters. Several numerical results are presented.