Large deformation stiffened plate element for eccentrically stiffened laminated composite plates

A new stiffened plate element was devised to investigate the geometrically nonlinear behavior of eccentrically stiffened laminated composite plates. For large deformation, the Von-Karman kinematic relations of the plate and stiffener were considered. The transverse shear deformation effect was included by using the Mindlin-Reissoner first-order shearing deformation theory. Y-directional strains and torsional rigidity had been accounted in the stiffener constitutive equations, which were neglected in conventional type modeling. The solution of nonlinear equilibrium equations was obtained by use of Newton-Raphson incremental-iterative procedures. The main feature of this model shows that the mesh divisions can be made not according to the stiffener locations.