%0 Journal Article %T ON THE EQUATIONS OF GEOMETRICALLY NONLINEAR ELASTIC PLATES WITH ROTATIONAL DEGREES OF FREEDOM %A Mircea B£¿rsan %A Patrizio Neff %J Mathematics and its Applications : Annals of the Academy of Romanian Scientists %D 2012 %I Academy of Romanian Scientists Publishing House %X We consider the general model of 6-parametric elastic plates, inwhich the rotation tensor field is an independent kinematic field. Inthis context we show the existence of global minimizers to the minimization problem of the total potential energy. %K elastic plates %K geometrically non-linear plates %K shells %K existence of minimizers %K Cosserat plate %U http://www.mathematics-and-its-applications.com/preview/iun2012/data/07_Birsan_Neff.pdf