A finite element method with discontinuous rotations for the Mindlin-Reissner plate model

Journal article, 2011

We present a continuous-discontinuous finite element method for the Mindlin-Reissner plate model based on continuous polynomials of degree k >= 2 for the transverse displacements and discontinuous polynomials of degree k - 1 for the rotations. We prove a priori convergence estimates, uniformly in the thickness of the plate, and thus show that locking is avoided. We also derive a posteriori error estimates based on duality, together with corresponding adaptive procedures for controlling linear functionals of the error. Finally, we present some numerical results.