A FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD FOR THE MINDLIN-REISSNER PLATE MODEL

In this work a finite element method is introduced for the Mindlin-Reissner model that describes the displacement of a plate subject to a transverse load. The discretization introduced here is a modification of that proposed by Arnold and Falk in [SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 26(1989), pp. 1276-1290]. The method used here is easier to implement since the internal degrees of freedom are removed, thus avoiding the static condensation procedure. As in Arnold and Falk, optimal order error estimates are proved with constants independent of the plate thickness, and therefore the method is adequate for very thin plates.