Coupling of h and p finite elements: Application to free vibration analysis of plates with curvilinear plan-forms

This paper presents a method for coupling isoparametric cubic quadrilateral h-elements and straight sided serendipity quadrilateral p-elements. The p-elements are used to model the interior of the domain while the h-elements are used to describe accurately the curved boundaries. At a common side shared by a p-element and an arbitrary number of h-elements, the field variables are minimized in the least square sense with respect to the degrees-of-freedom of the h-elements. This leads to a set of equations which relate the degrees-of-freedom of the coupled elements on the shared side. The method is applied to the calculation of frequencies for plates with curvilinear plan-forms. The effects of shear deformation and rotary inertia are taken into account. The frequencies are obtained for a sectorial plate with simply supported radial edges and free circular edge, an annular sectorial plate with simply supported radial edges and clamped circular edges, and a circular plate with one concentric ring support. Furthermore, new accurate frequencies are given for a fully clamped square plate with a corner cut-out. Constant meshes are used and convergence is sought by increasing progressively the degree p of the interpolating polynomial. The fast convergence and high accuracy of the method are validated through convergence and comparison studies.