Bending of annular sectorial Mindlin plates using Kirchhoff results

Abstract

This study is concerned with the elastic bending problem of a class of annular sectorial plates whose radial edges are simply supported. Exact bending relationships between the Mindlin plate results and the corresponding Kirchhoff plate solutions have been derived based on the concept of load equivalence. These bending relationships facilitate the deduction of thick (Mindlin) plate results from the corresponding classical thin (Kirchhoff) plate solutions, thus bypassing the need to solve the more complicated governing equations of thick plates. The correctness of the relationships is established by solving the bending problem of annular sectorial plates under a uniformly distributed load and comparing the results with existing thick plate solutions.