Artificial Orthotropy

An homogeneous orthotropic plate model is presented for the idealisation of composed plate structures with orthotropy properties. The model requires the specification of 14 material parameters and couples membrane and bending forces. To find these parameters a finite element procedure is proposed that calculates these parameters with the help of a plane strain analysis and a simple potential analysis for a series of basic load cases. These parameters are substituted into the orthotropy model for the analysis of the homogeneous orthotropic plate. Both analysis steps can be performed with simple 2D finite element programs such as KOLA. Two examples show the performance of these modelsCivil Engineering and Geoscience