Free vibration of rectangular plates of arbitrary thickness

Free vibration of thick rectangular plates is investigated by using the “method of initial functions” proposed by Vlasov. The governing equations are derived from the three-dimensional elastodynamic equations. They are obtained in the form of series and theories of any desired order can be constructed by deleting higher terms in the infinite order differential equations. The numerical results are compared with those of classical, Mindlin, and Lee and Reismann solutions.     

Free vibration analysis of corner-supported rectangular plates with symmetrically distributed edge beams

Analytical type solutions are obtained for the free vibration frequencies and mode shapes of thin corner-supported rectangular plates with symmetrically distributed reinforcing beams, or strips, attached to the plate edges. The method of superposition is employed. Equations governing reactions at plate-beam interfaces are developed in dimensionless form. The approach is comprehensive in that both lateral and rotational stiffness, and inertia, of the beam are incorporated into the analysis. For illustrative purposes computed eigenvalues and mode shapes are presented for two plate-beam systems of realistic geometries. It is shown that the method is easily extended to cover the case where the edge beams do not have a symmetrical distribution. This appears to be the first comprehensive analytical study of this problem of industrial interest.     

Free vibration analysis of rectangular plates with symmetrically distributed point supports along the edges

In this paper a highly accurate mathematical technique for establishing the free vibration eigenvalues and mode shapes of rectangular plates with symmetrically distributed point supports is introduced. The method is based on the principle of superposition and it constitutes, in essence, an extension of a technique described earlier for the analysis of completely free plates. Eigenvalues, covering numerous modes and aspect ratios, are tabulated for corner supported rectangular plates. It is seen that with some modifications the method is equally applicable to problems where the point supports are not symmetrically distributed.     

Free vibration of continuous polar orthotropic annular and circular plates

The free vibration of a polar orthotropic annular plate supported on concentric circles is analyzed by the Ritz method with use of Lagrange multipliers. A trial function for the deflection of the plate is expressed in terms of simple power series, and a frequency equation for the plate is derived by the condition for minimizing the total potential energy with the constraint equations included. In the numerical examples it is also shown that the method can directly yield quite accurate frequency values for a solid circular plate. Natural frequencies of annular and circular plates are calculated for wide ranges of the support location and orthotropic parameters.     

Accurate vibration analysis of thick, cracked rectangular plates

This work applies the Ritz method to accurately determine the frequencies and nodal patterns of thick, cracked rectangular plates analyzed using Mindlin plate theory. Two types of cracked configuration are considered, namely, side crack and internal crack. To enhance the capabilities of the Ritz method in dealing with cracked plates, new sets of admissible functions are proposed to represent the behaviors of true solutions along the crack. The proposed admissible functions appropriately describe the stress singularity behaviors around a crack tip and the discontinuities of transverse displacement and bending rotations across the crack. The present solutions monotonically converge to the exact frequencies as upper bounds when the number of admissible functions increases. The validity and accuracy of the present solutions are confirmed through comprehensive convergence studies and comparison with the published results based on the classical thin plate theory. The proposed approach is further employed to investigate the effects of the length, location, and orientation of crack on frequencies and nodal patterns of simply supported and cantilevered cracked rectangular plates. The results shown are the first ones available in the published literature.     

Refined vibration and damping analysis of multilayered rectangular plates

Refined vibration and damping analysis of a general multilayered rectangular plate consisting of an arbitrary number of layers of orthotropic materials has been developed by considering extension, bending, in-plane shear and transverse shear deformations in all the layers and taking into account the rotary and longitudinal translatory inertias along with the transverse inertia of the plate. The solution for a multilayered plate with simply supported edges has been taken in series summation form and resonating frequencies and associated loss factors for plates with alternate elastic and viscoelastic layers have been evaluated by application of the correspondence principle of linear viscoelasticity. Results for three-, five- and seven-layered plates obtained by the present refined analysis are compared with the results obtained by conventional analysis of multilayered plates.     

Free vibration analysis of beams and rectangular plates with free edges by the discrete singular convolution

In this paper, free vibration of beams, annular plates, and rectangular plates with free boundaries are analyzed by using the discrete singular convolution (DSC). A novel method to apply the free boundary conditions is proposed. Detailed derivations are given. To validate the proposed method, eight examples, including the free vibrations of beams, annular plates and rectangular plates with free boundaries are analyzed. Two kernels, the regularized Shannon's kernel and the non-regularized Lagrange's delta sequence kernel, are tested. DSC results are compared with either analytical solutions or/and differential quadrature (DQ) data. It is demonstrated that the proposed method to incorporate the free boundary conditions is simple to use and can yield accurate frequency data for beams with a free end and plates with free edges. Thus, the proposed method for applying the boundary conditions extends the application range of the DSC.     

Free vibration of rectangular plates with edges having different degrees of rotational restraint

A numerical method developed by the author has been used as a basis for determining natural frequencies of rectangular plates possessing different degrees of elastic restraints along the edges. The basic functions satisfying the boundary conditions along two opposite edges for such cases have been derived. Comparison of results with others that are available indicates excellent accuracy. Many new results have been presented.     

Free vibration of two elastically coupled rectangular plates with uniform elastic boundary restraints

An analytical method is derived for determining the vibrations of two plates which are generally supported along the boundary edges, and elastically coupled together at an arbitrary angle. The interactions of all four wave groups (bending waves, out-of-plane shearing waves, in-plane longitudinal waves, and in-plane shearing waves) have been taken into account at the junction via four types of coupling springs of arbitrary stiffnesses. Each of the transverse and in-plane displacement functions is expressed as the superposition of a two-dimensional (2-D) Fourier cosine series and several supplementary functions which are introduced to ensure and improve the convergence of the series representation by removing the discontinuities that the original displacement and its derivatives will potentially exhibit at the edges when they are periodically expanded onto the entire x-y plane as mathematically implied by a 2-D Fourier series. The unknown expansions coefficients are calculated using the Rayleigh-Ritz procedure which is actually equivalent to solving the governing equation and the boundary and coupling conditions directly when the assumed solutions are sufficiently smooth over the solution domains. Numerical examples are presented for several different coupling configurations. A good comparison is observed between the current results and the FEA models. Although this study is specifically focused on the coupling of two plates, the proposed method can be directly extended to structures consisting of any number of plates.     

Analytical modeling and vibration analysis of internally cracked rectangular plates

This study proposes an analytical model for nonlinear vibrations in a cracked rectangular isotropic plate containing a single and two perpendicular internal cracks located at the center of the plate. The two cracks are in the form of continuous line with each parallel to one of the edges of the plate. The equation of motion for isotropic cracked plate, based on classical plate theory is modified to accommodate the effect of internal cracks using the Line Spring Model. Berger?s formulation for in-plane forces makes the model nonlinear. Galerkin?s method used with three different boundary conditions transforms the equation into time dependent modal functions. The natural frequencies of the cracked plate are calculated for various crack lengths in case of a single crack and for various crack length ratio for the two cracks. The effect of the location of the part through crack(s) along the thickness of the plate on natural frequencies is studied considering appropriate crack compliance coefficients. It is thus deduced that the natural frequencies are maximally affected when the crack(s) are internal crack(s) symmetric about the mid-plane of the plate and are minimally affected when the crack(s) are surface crack(s), for all the three boundary conditions considered. It is also shown that crack parallel to the longer side of the plate affect the vibration characteristics more as compared to crack parallel to the shorter side. Further the application of method of multiple scales gives the nonlinear amplitudes for different aspect ratios of the cracked plate. The analytical results obtained for surface crack(s) are also assessed with FEM results. The FEM formulation is carried out in ANSYS.     

Free vibration of rectangular plates of arbitrary thickness with one or more edges clamped

Frequencies of free vibration of rectangular plates of arbitrary thickness, with different support conditions, are calculated by using the Method of Initial Functions (MIF), proposed by Vlasov. Sixth and fourth order MIF theories are used for the solution. Numerical results are presented for three square plates for three thickness ratios. The support conditions considered are (i) three sides simply supported and one side clamped, (ii) two opposite sides simply supported and the other two sides clamped and (iii) all sides clamped. It is found that the results produced by the MIF method are in fair agreement with those obtained by using other methods. The classical theory gives overestimates of the frequencies and the departures from the MIF results increase for higher modes and larger thickness ratios.     

Free vibration analysis of continuous orthotropic bridge decks

While studies of the free vibration problem of single span bridge slabs have been undertaken by a number of authors, literature on continuous span orthotropic bridge slabs is rather scarce. Furthermore, general continuous bridge deck problems have been dealt with by approximate methods only for specific types of boundary conditions. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate a general analytical solution which would be applicable to all types of boundary conditions. The solution developed is discussed here with special reference to “bridge type” boundary conditions. The analysis is based on the ordinary theory of thin plates and is formulated for linearly elastic materials with isotropic or orthotropic properties. A Levy-type series solution is employed and the problem of free vibration analysis of continuous isotropic and orthotropic bridge slabs is solved by using the principle of superposition. The solution is tested for convergence by varying the number of terms in the solution and the convergence is found to be excellent. Results obtained for continuous isotropic bridge decks are compared with published solutions and close agreements are found. For orthotropic bridge decks a similar comparison was not possible because of a lack of published results in the technical literature.     

Rayleigh-Ritz vibration analysis of rectangular Mindlin plates subjected to membrane stresses

A previously developed analysis of the flexural vibration of isotropic rectangular plates is extended to include the presence of a membrane stress system. The method of analysis is the Rayleigh-Ritz method and Mindlin plate theory is used which takes into account effects which are disregarded in the classical plate theory. As in the aforementioned earlier analysis the spatial variations of the deflection and two rotations over the plate middle surface are based on the use of Timoshenko beam functions. The membrane stress system comprises biaxial direct stress plus in-plane shearing stress and is uniform throughout the plate. Numerical results are presented for a number of types of plate and of applied stress which show the manner of variation of the frequencies of vibration as the intensity of stress changes. This manner of variation is similar in form to that demonstrated elsewhere by analyses based on the use of the classical plate theory but the magnitudes of the present calculated frequencies are considerably reduced for moderately thick plates.     

The flexural vibration of welded rectangular plates

A theoretical and experimental study of the effect of weld runs on the flexural vibrational characteristics of the common structural element, the rectangular plate, is described. A finite difference technique is utilized for the determination of the in-plane residual stress pattern due to the weld(s) and the Rayleigh-Ritz method, with beam characteristic functions, is used for the out-of-plane vibration analysis. The theoretical approach presented is applicable to rectangular plates of any practical aspect ratio, having any combination of out-of-plane boundary conditions for which beam functions may reasonably be used and subject to one or more weld runs parallel to any edge. Theoretical and experimental results for a number of specific plates are presented, demonstrating the effects of welding on the plate vibration and the capability and accuracy of the analytical approach in predicting these effects. Included is a study of the effect of using the full residual stress pattern as derived from the finite difference analysis, the effect of neglecting certain stress components and the effect of using simplified stress patterns developed primarily for the stress and buckling analysis of long plates.