Angle Plates

An angle plate is a multistructure consisting of two plate-like substructures meeting at a right angle. We regard it as obtained from a single plate by a thought process of folding such as to affect the material behavior only in the “elbow” region. We model the three-dimensional plate-like material region corresponding to the plate to fold as being transversely isotropic with respect to an axis orthogonal to its base surface, with admissible displacements in the Reissner-Mindlin’s form. After folding, we require that in the “elbow” region the material be doubly transversely isotropic and the displacement be the common restriction of the admissible displacements in the two “arm” plates. Under these assumptions, from a three-dimensional virtual-work formulation of equilibrium we deduce by mere thickness integration the field, boundary, and transmission equations of our twodimensional model of a linearly elastic angle plate. Various generalizations of this model are possible, some of which we occasionally indicate.