Authors : A.U. Ibekwe , I.E. Douglas and S. Odi-Owei
Abstract: In the several structural applications of plates, thickness in service may not always be considered constant as, in addition to other sources, a variable thickness profile can result from metal surface losses due to corrosion. A further analytical step to the finite element analysis of plate has been proposed in this study, by modeling this arbitrarily varying thickness profile as a 3rd degree polynomial. The plate continuum was discretized into rows and columns and thickness losses measured randomly along the plate length for the number of idealized rows and the least square method used to fit a unique curve through the data points for each row. Equivalent element thicknesses were obtained as simple averages of its corresponding boundary nodal thickness, determined from the polynomial curve. A finite element program incorporating this novel concept was developed and validated by a comparative analysis of classical results for a uniformly loaded encastre plate of constant cross section.
A.U. Ibekwe , I.E. Douglas and S. Odi-Owei , 2007. A Finite Element Analysis of Corroded Plates . Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 2: 1661-1668.