A family of $C^0$ finite elements for Kirchhoff plates II: numerical tests

A new family of C0 Kirchhoff plate elements has been introduced by the authors in the theoretical counterpart of the present paper; A family of C0 finite elements for Kirchhoff plates I: Error analysis. The method presented is a displacement formulation with the deflection and the rotation as unknowns. In the theoretical part, an a priori and an a posteriori error analysis has been accomplished for the family. In the present contribution, the authors first give a supplementary derivation of the method and recall the main theoretical results, then focus on the computational aspects of the method, and finally present a set of numerical results on various benchmark computations. These tests verify the optimal convergence rate of the method and illustrate the robustness of the reliable and efficient residual-based a posteriori error estimator for adaptive mesh refinements. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.