Linear and Nonlinear Bending Analyses of Quadrilateral Panels Using Cell-Based Smooth Finite Element Method

Cell-based smoothed finite element method (CS-FEM) has been used for the linear and nonlinear bending analyses of Reissner–Mindlin quadrilateral plates. Initially, the quadrilateral panels are discretized into four quadrilateral smoothening cells. The cell-based strain smoothing technique is employed here to evaluate the membrane and bending stiffness matrices of non-rectangular cells, while the transverse shear strains of the non-rectangular element are calculated based on edge-consistent four-node quadrilateral finite element approach. At first, to validate the performance of the cell-based smoothed finite element technique, it is validated with the available results of the linear and nonlinear bending analyses of trapezoidal panels. Thereafter, new results for the nonlinear bending analysis of quadrilateral panels are presented.