A thick plate model for bending and twisting of CANDU fuel endplates

A finite element model for in-plane bending, out-of-plane bending and twisting of CANDU fuel endplates is developed using Reddy's third-order thick plate theory in this paper. From theoretical considerations, the proposed model is expected to be superior to the beam theories in dealing with the joining of curved rings and straight ribs. Numerical results obtained for test cases show that the plate model presented is efficient and accurate.