Triangular Differential Quadrature for Bending Analysis of Reissner Plates with Curved Boundaries

The recently proposed concept of the triangular differential quadrature method (TDQM) is applied to the bending analysis of Reissner plates with various curvilinear geometries subjected to various combinations of boundary conditions. A unit isosceles right triangle is used as the standard triangle for all the derivatives expressed using the triangular differential quadrature rule. Geometric transformations are introduced using basis functions to determine the weighting coefficients for the triangular differential quadrature to map an arbitrary curvilinear triangle into the standard triangle. The triangular differential quadrature method provides good accuracy and rapid convergence relative to other available exact and numerical results.