Nonlinear static analysis of arbitrary quadrilateral plates in very large deflections

Through a linear mapping, an arbitrary quadrilateral plate is transformed into a standard square computational domain in which the deformation and director fields are developed together with the general forms of the uncoupled nonlinear equations. By proper interpolation of displacement and rotation fields on the whole domain, such that the boundary conditions are satisfied, a mathematical model based on the elastic Cosserat theory, is developed to analyze very large deformations of thin plates in nonlinear static loading. The principle of virtual work is exploited to present the weak form of the governing differential equations. The geometric and material tangential stiffness matrices are formed through linearization, and a step by step procedure is presented to complete the method. The validity and the accuracy of the method are illustrated through certain numerical examples and comparison of the results with other researches.