The flexural vibration of a line-stiffened plate with fluid loading,part I: Analysis

This paper considers the vibration of a symmetrical system consisting of an infinite fluid loaded plate bearing a finite number of parallel stiffeners. The system is driven at the central stiffener by a travelling wave line force. Formal solutions for the equations of motion are found in terms of cosine transforms. Manipulation of the equations allows the problem to be reduced to the solution of a set of linear algebraic equations in the vibration amplitudes at the stiffeners. The coefficients in these equations depend in a simple way upon the stiffener parameters, and upon particular values of the cosine transform of a function which depends only on the plate and fluid parameters, and the stiffener positions.