Derivative recovery techniques for C° plate problems

An enhanced L2 projection method for recovering accurate derivatives such as moments, or shears, from finite element solutions for C° plates is presented. In the enhanced global and local projections, the square of the residuals in the equilibrium equations is included. Results are compared with those of standard global and local projection methods. Numerical examples show that in the global projection, the enhanced technique improves the accuracy of projected solution significantly. In the local projection, the enhanced projection technique circumvents the numerical ill‐conditioning which occurs in some meshes, and usually recovers derivatives with better accuracy. These techniques are effective for both thin and thick plate problems, and can provide more reliable error estimates for mesh adaptivity.