Exact solutions for variable-thickness inhomogeneous elastic plates under various boundary conditions

In this paper, an exact solution to the governing equations of the bending of a variable-thickness inhomogeneous rectangular plate is presented. The procedure is applicable to variable-thickness inhomogeneous rectangular plates with two opposite edges simply supported. The remaining ones subjected to a combination of clamped, simply supported, and free boundary conditions and between these two edges the plate may have varying thickness. The procedure is valuable in view of the fact that tables of deflections and stresses cannot be presented for variable-thickness inhomogeneous orthotropic plates as for uniform-thickness homogeneous isotropic plates even for commonly encountered loads because the results depend on the inhomogeneity coefficient and the orthotropic material properties instead of a single flexural rigidity. Numerical results, useful for the validation or otherwise of approximate solutions, are tabulated. The influences of the degree of the inhomogeneity, aspect ratio, thickness parameter and degree of non-uniformity on the deflections and stresses are investigated. This paper is partially supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research at King AbdulAziz University (Grant no. 172/427).