i n t o n , Commun. uppl. numer. methods, 2, 217-228 (1986)).I would like to point out an inconsistency between the form of the displacements that are assumed in the paper by Ren and Hinton and the displacements that apply in the exact theory of plates. Ren and Hinton's approximations are consistent when Poisson's ratio is zero; a simple adjustment may be made in other cases.Following some recent work by Cheng,' it is possible to show, for a plate of constant thickness, h, made of linear isotropic elastic material, lying in the regionand subject to the surface loading(1) that the displacement fields are given by andIn these expressions (u,v,w) are the displacements in the Cartesian coordinate system (x,y,z), s = sin (hV/2), c = cos (hV/2), u is Poisson's ratio and V2 = a2/dx2 + a2/ay2 is the two-dimensional Laplacian operator. The quantity w* is the z displacement on the mid-plane z = 0 and satisfies the Kirchhoff equation V4w* = p l D (4) with the appropriate standard Kirchhoff boundary conditions, which are of course problem dependent. Also,
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