Triangular elements for Reissner-Mindlin plate

A general method to construct locking free Reissner-Mindlin plate elements is presented. According to this method the shear strain is replaced by its proper interpolation polynomial, which corresponds to the Kirchhoff conditions at the interpolation points as the thickness of plate tends to zero so the element is locking free. We construct two triangular elements by this method- a 3-node elenent and a 6-node element. The numerical results are provided.