Free vibration of super elliptical plates with constant and variable thickness by Ritz method

In this study free vibration of simply supported and clamped super elliptical plates is investigated. This class of plates includes a wide range of external boundaries varying from an ellipse to a rectangle. Although studies on the upper and lower bounds of these plate geometries, namely circle and rectangle, are quite extensive, contributions on the mid-shapes, especially for simply supported boundary edges are very limited. The Kirchhoff plate model with isotropic and homogeneous material is studied. The super elliptical powers are chosen from 1 to 10. The Ritz method is employed for the solution of the energy equations of the plates. The effects of Poisson's ratio, which should not be neglected for simply supported plates with curved boundaries, and the aspect ratio of the plate are both examined in detail. The effect of thickness variation is also considered in this study. In order to avoid long computational run times, physically pertinent trial functions are utilized. The frequency parameters obtained are presented and compared with published results for plate shapes that match the current cases.