Free vibration of polar-orthotropic sector plates

The free vibration of ring-shaped polar-orthotropic sector plates is analyzed by the Ritz method using a spline function as an admissible function for the deflection of the plates. For this purpose, the transverse deflection of a sector plate is written in a series of the products of the deflection function of a sectorial beam and that of a circular beam satisfying the boundary conditions. The deflection function of the sectorial beam is approximately expressed by a quintic spline function, which satisfies the equation of flexural vibration of the beam at each point dividing the beam into small elements. The frequency equation of the plate is derived by the conditions for a stationary value of the Lagrangian. The present method is applied to ring-shaped polar-orthotropic sector plates with some combination of boundary conditions, and the natural frequencies and the mode shapes are calculated numerically up to higher modes. This method is very effective for the study of vibration problems of variously shaped anisotropic plates including these sector plates.