Abstract: spline mixed element method is presented for solving the problem of bending plates and shells based on the application of cubic spline functions and generalized variational principle with two kinds of variables. Two kinds of field functions are constructed by using splinest one is the displacement function and another is the generalized force field function.The spline mixed element equations are derived by using the generalized variational principle with two kinds of variables. The spline interpolating function is both analytic and numeric, and has sufficient continuity, high approximate precision, both field functions are independent, and so the two kinds of field variables have good accuracy. Several numerical examples are given and show that the computed results are in good agreement with the corresponding exact solution.

Key words: generalized variational principle with two kinds of variables, spline interpolating function, spline mixed element method