A discrete de Rham method for the Reissner–Mindlin plate bending problem on polygonal meshes

In this work we propose a discretisation method for the Reissner–Mindlin plate bending problem in primitive variables that supports general polygonal meshes and arbitrary order. The is inspired by two-dimensional discrete de Rham complex which key commutation properties hold enable cancellation of contribution to error linked enforcement Kirchhoff constraint. Denoting k≥0 polynomial degree spaces h meshsize, derive proposed an estimate hk+1 k, as well locking-free lowest-order case k=0. theoretical results are validated on complete panel numerical tests.