Shear locking-free earthquake analysis of thick and thin plates using Mindlin

The purpose of this paper is to study shear locking-free parametric earthquake analysis of thick and thin plates using Mindlin\'s theory, to determine the effects of the thickness/span ratio, the aspect ratio and the boundary conditions on the linear responses of thick and thin plates subjected to earthquake excitations. In the analysis, finite element method is used for spatial integration and the Newmark-B method is used for the time integration. Finite element formulation of the equations of the thick plate theory is derived by using higher order displacement shape functions. A computer program using finite element method is coded in C++ to analyze the plates clamped or simply supported along all four edges. In the analysis, 17-noded finite element is used. Graphs are presented that should help engineers in the design of thick plates subjected to earthquake excitations. It is concluded that 17-noded finite element can be effectively used in the earthquake analysis of thick and thin plates. It is also concluded that, in general, the changes in the thickness/span ratio are more effective on the maximum responses considered in this study than the changes in the aspect ratio.