On the Generalization of Reissner Plate Theory to Laminated Plates, Part II: Comparison with the Bending-Gradient Theory

In the first part of this two-part paper (Lebée and Sab in On the generalization of Reissner plate theory to laminated plates, Part I: theory, doi:10.1007/s10659-016-9581-6, 2015), the original thick plate theory derived by Reissner (J. Math. Phys. 23:184–191, 1944) was rigorously extended to the case of laminated plates. This led to a new plate theory called Generalized-Reissner theory which involves the bending moment, its first and second gradients as static variables. In this second paper, the Bending-Gradient theory (Lebée and Sab in Int. J. Solids Struct. 48(20):2878–2888, 2011 and 2889–2901, 2011) is obtained from the Generalized-Reissner theory and several projections as a Reissner–Mindlin theory are introduced. A comparison with an exact solution for the cylindrical bending of laminated plates is presented. It is observed that the Generalized-Reissner theory converges faster than the Kirchhoff theory for thin plates in terms of deflection. The Bending-Gradient theory does not converge faster but improves considerably the error estimate.