NURBS-based isogeometric analysis for thin plate problems

An isogeometric approach is presented for static analysis of thin plate problems of various geometries. Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) basis function is applied for approximation of the thin plate deflection, as for description of the geometry. The governing equation based on Kirchhoff plate theory, is discretized using the standard Galerkin method. The essential boundary conditions are enforced by the Lagrange multiplier method. Several typical examples of thin plate and thin plate on elastic foundation are solved and compared with the theoretical solutions and other numerical methods. The numerical results show the robustness and efficiency of the proposed approach.