Characteristic orthogonal polynomials in the study of transverse vibrations of nonhomogeneous rectangular orthotropic plates of bilinearly varying thickness

Effect of nonhomogeneity on the vibrational characteristics of thin orthotropic rectangular plates of bilinearly varying thickness has been studied using boundary characteristic orthogonal polynomials in the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The thickness variation is taken as the Cartesian product of linear variations along two concurrent edges of the plate. The orthogonal polynomials in two variables are generated using the Gram-Schmidt process. The nonhomogeneity of the plate material is assumed to arise due to linear variations in Young’s moduli, shear modulus and density of the plate with the in-plane coordinates. Numerical results have been computed for four different combinations of clamped, simply supported and free edges. Effect of thickness variation together with varying values of aspect ratio and nonhomogeneity on the natural frequencies is illustrated for the first three modes of vibration. Three dimensional mode shapes have been presented. Comparison has been made with the known results.