Title: Edge effects in the Reissner-Mindlin plate theory Authors: Douglas N. Arnold and Richard S. Falk Source: in "Analytic and Computational Models of Shells" (A. K. Noor, T. Belytschhko, and J.C. Simo, eds.), A.S.M.E., New York, 1989, pp. 71-90. Status: Published Abstract: We investigate the structure of the solution of the Reissner-Mindlin plate equations in its dependence on the plate thickness for various boundary conditions, developing asymptotic expansions in powers of the plate thickness for the main physical quantities. These expansions are uniform up to the boundary for the transverse displacement, but for other variables there is a boundary layer, whose strength depends on the boundary conditions. We give rigorous error bounds for the errors in the expansions in Sobolev norms and make various applications. Keywords: Reissner, Mindlin, plate, boundary layer, edge effect Subj. class.: 73K10, 73K25 URL: http://math.rutgers.edu/~falk/papers/rmexamples.pdf