New triangular displacement-based element for the analysis of laminated composite plates and improvement stress solutions by a hybrid procedure

Based on the first-order-shear deformation theory (FSDT), a new simple displacement-based, triangular bending element for the analysis of laminated composite plates, called CGCLLM-T9, was presented in this paper, without shear locking. With Hellinger-Reissner, a new simple hybrid procedure was proposed to improve the stress solutions of such displacement-based elements. The results show that both displacements in any condition and stresses in the thick plates, especially the transverse shear stresses, can be obtained. In the thin plates, except for the transverse shear stresses, the others can be obtained. This element is fit to solve the problem with complex borderline. Numerical examples show that the proposed element is of good performance for moderately thick and very thin composite plates.