The Classical Field Theories

A plate and more generally a shell is a special three-dimensional body whose boundary surface has special features. Although we defer defining a shell-like body in precise terms until Sect. 4, for the purpose of these preliminary remarks consider a surface—called a reference surface—and imagine material filaments from above and below surrounding the surface along the normal at each point of the reference surface. Suppose further that the bounding surfaces formed by the end points of the material filaments are equidistant from the reference surface. Such a three-dimensional body is called a shell if the dimension of the body along the normals, called the thickness, is small. A shell is said to be thin if its thickness is much smaller than a certain characteristic length of the reference surface, e.g., the minimum radius of the curvature of the reference surface for initially curved shells.2

The Theory of Shells and Plates

Eric Reissner

Papers

A New Derivation of the Equations for the Deformation of Elastic Shells

Note on the Expressions for the Strains in a Bent, Thin Shell