Kirchhoff–Love Plate Deformations Reinterpreted

Abstract

The deformations of Kirchhoff–Love plate elements are usually characterized by three components describing the strains in the middle plane and three components describing the bending of the plate element. It is shown that alternatively one may consider pure bending deformations about two neutral axes that generally are not in the same plane and skew to each other. This interpretation provides an intuitive understanding of the plate deformations and is particularly useful when analyzing the behavior of reinforced concrete plate elements subjected to combined bending moments and membrane forces. After a recapitulation of the conventional interpretation of Kirchhoff–Love plate deformations and their implications on the strain distribution in plate elements, this paper presents the alternative interpretation and illustrates its application for a special case with orthogonal neutral axes.