Application of finite element method in plate bending in the area of small plastic deformation

The applied approximate formulas do not guarantee accurate results in determination of bending force for long and thick plates, in relation to the size of the bending radius, especially for plates with great wall thickness and the large bending radius. When bending plates in press tool, it happens very often that punch and the matrix are of the same size. At one moment the bending force at Delta L=0 represents infinitesimally great bending force. The paper is concerned with the numeric procedure in plate bending. For numeric procedure the finite element method is used. The plate bending analysis is restricted to the data used so far in the manufacture of tanks i.e. to deformations up to 2%.