ABSTRACTThe formulation of four quadrilateral plate bending elements based of reissner. Mindlin plate theory are presented and compared. The elements are based on the modified Hellinger-Reissner mixed, on assumed shear strain fields and on the Discrete Kirchhof Mindlin Theory. Numerical results are dealing with the stability of the models, the constant patch-tests, the shear locking possibility and the convergence for benchmark problems.