A simple, refined theory for bending and stretching of homogeneous plates

A study on the planar bending conducted by Rehfield and Murthy (1982) shows that two effects in addition to transverse shear strain arise naturally in considering improvements to classical theory. The present investigation has two primary objectives. The first objective is concerned with the development of new equations for static plate bending and stretching which are simple, consistent, and complete. The development is based on fundamental ideas considered by Rehfield and Murthy (1982) and Murthy and Rehfield (1982). The second objective involves a validation of the equations by demonstrating that by using them it is possible to derive equations reported by Reissner (1945, 1947).