Finite element analysis of anisotropic plates

Two aspects of the finite element analysis of mid-plane symmetrically laminated anisotropic plates are considered in this paper. The first pertains to exploiting the symmetries exhibited by anisotropic plates in their analysis. The second aspect pertains to the effects of anisotropy and shear deformation on the accuracy and convergence of shear-flexible displacement finite element models. Numerical results are presented which show the effects of increasing the order of approximating polynomials and of using derivatives of generalized displacements as nodal parameters.