Discrete and non-discrete mixed methods applied to eigenvalue problems of plates

A mixed variational formulation for eigenvalue problems of plates is presented. Spline functions with multiple nodes are used to interpolate the displacement and moment fields. The solution procedure can be applied in either discrete or non-discrete forms. In contrast with displacement methods, the specified boundary conditions can be considered very easily by introducing multiplicity in the boundary nodes. Numerical examples include buckling and free vibration, of rectangular plates, with in-plane loading and or elastic foundations. The accuracy of the results obtained and the superiority of the mixed methods presented to conventional displacement approaches are discussed.     

Broad-band apochromatic retarders: choice of materials

Apochromatic retarders can be constructed by using a combination of three plates of different birefringent materials with properly chosen thicknesses. However, when dealing with a broad wavelength range, their performance depends very much on the materials chosen. A procedure is presented for optimizing the choice of materials for such a broad-band retarder.     

Design of phase plates for shaping partially coherent beams by simulated annealing

Taking the Gaussian Schell-model beam as a typical example of partially coherent beams, this paper applies the simulated annealing （SA） algorithm to the design of phase plates for shaping partially coherent beams. A flow diagram is presented to illustrate the procedure of phase optimization by the SA algorithm. Numerical examples demonstrate the advantages of the SA algorithm in shaping partially coherent beams. An uniform flat-topped beam profile with maximum reconstruction error RE 〈 1.74% is achieved. A further extension of the approach is discussed.     

An efficient differential quadrature methodology for free vibration analysis of arbitrary straight-sided quadrilateral thin plates

In this paper, a new differential quadrature (DQ) methodology is employed to study free vibration of irregular quadrilateral straight-sided thin plates. A four-nodded super element is used to map the irregular physical domain into a square domain in the computational domain. Second order transformation schemes with relative ease and less computation are employed to transform the fourth order governing equation of thin plates between the two domains. The only degree of freedom within the domain is the displacement, whereas along the boundaries, the displacement as well as the second order derivative of the displacement with respect to associated normal co-ordinate variable in computational domain are the two degrees of freedom. Implementing the method, the formulation for the DQ method for the free vibration analysis of plates of straight-sided shapes was presented together with the implementation procedure for the different boundary conditions. To demonstrate the accuracy, convergency and stability of the new methodology, detail studies are made on isotropic plates at acute angles with different geometries, boundary and loading conditions including DQ free-edge boundary condition implementations. Accurate results even with fewer degrees of freedom than for those of comparable numerical algorithms were achieved.     

On the analysis of large amplitude vibrations of non-uniform rectangular plates

An analysis of the large amplitude vibrations of non-uniform rectangular plates is presented. The method is based on Berger's assumption of neglecting the second invariant of the middle surface strain in the expression corresponding to the total potential energy of the system, in conjunction with a Galerkin procedure.     

Design of interdigital transducers for crack detection in plates

Interdigital transducers (IDT) for non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of cracks in plates are designed based on an analytical model established previously. Key considerations include mode selectivity, excitation strength, collimation of wave and cost. The advantage of mode selectivity of IDT over PZT patch is presented both analytically and experimentally. Effects of parameters, namely finger spacing, width, length, number of fingers, and the size of IDT, on the excitation strength and mode selectivity are considered. This led to the design of a mobile double-sided IDT as an efficient device where excitation strength is strong and focused. The device was fabricated in-house using commercially available piezoelectric ceramics and used to develop a procedure for accurate identification of the direction and extent of cracks in plates. Three aluminum plates, one with a linear deep crack, another with a piecewise linear shallower crack and the third with a curved crack, were used to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of both the proposed device and procedure for effective NDE.     

Dynamic responses of Reissner–Mindlin plates with free edges resting on tensionless elastic foundations

Dynamic response analysis is presented for a Reissner–Mindlin plate with four free edges resting on a tensionless elastic foundation of the Winkler-type and Pasternak-type. The mechanical loads consist of transverse partially distributed impulsive loads and in-plane static edge loads while the temperature field is assumed to exhibit a linear variation through the thickness of the plate. The material properties are assumed to be independent of temperature. The two cases of initially compressed plates and of initially heated plates are considered. The formulations are based on Reissner–Mindlin first-order shear deformation plate theory and include the plate–foundation interaction and thermal effects. A set of admissible functions is developed for the dynamic response analysis of moderately thick plates with four free edges. The Galerkin method, the Gauss–Legendre quadrature procedure and the Runge–Kutta technique are employed in conjunction with this set of admissible functions to determine the deflection-time and bending moment–time curves, as well as shape mode curves. An iterative scheme is developed to obtain numerical results without using any assumption on the shape of the contact region. The numerical illustrations concern moderately thick plates with four free edges resting on tensionless elastic foundations of the Winkler-type and Pasternak-type, from which results for conventional elastic foundations are obtained as comparators. The results confirm that the plate will have stronger dynamic behavior than its counterpart when it is supported by a tensionless elastic foundation.     

Vibrational frequencies of clamped plates of variable thickness

A method is presented for computing lower and upper bounds for vibrational frequencies of clamped plates with general thickness variations. The method is illustrated for plates with linear tapers.     

Velocities,dispersion, and energy of SH-waves in anisotropic laminated plates

A mathematical model is worked out for analyzing propagation ability and the specific energy of horizontally polarized shear surface waves (SH-waves) in multilayered plates. All the layers are assumed to have monoclinic symmetry. Different types of boundary conditions imposed on the outer surfaces of plates are considered. Analytic solutions for one- and two-layered plates are presented.     

Free vibration of antisymmetric,angle-ply laminated plates including transverse shear deformation by the finite element method

A finite element formulation of the equations governing the laminated anisotropic plate theory of Yang, Norris and Stavsky, is presented. The theory is a generalization of Mindlin's theory for isotropic plates to laminated anisotropic plates and includes shear deformation and rotary inertia effects. Finite element solutions are presented for rectangular plates of antisymmetric angle-ply laminates whose material properties are typical of a highly anisotropic composite material. Two sets of material properties that are typical of high modulus fiber-reinforced composites are used to show the parametric effects of plate aspect ratio, length-to-thickness ratio, number of layers and lamination angle. The numerical results are compared with the closed form results of Bert and Chen. As a special case, numerical results are presented for thick isotropic plates, and are compared with those for 3-D linear elasticity theory and Mindlin's thick plate theory.     

Free vibration analysis of functionally graded plates using the element-free kp-Ritz method

A free vibration analysis of metal and ceramic functionally graded plates that uses the element-free kp-Ritz method is presented. The material properties of the plates are assumed to vary continuously through their thickness according to a power-law distribution of the volume fractions of the plate constituents. The first-order shear deformation plate theory is employed to account for the transverse shear strain and rotary inertia, and mesh-free kernel particle functions are used to approximate the two-dimensional displacement fields. The eigen-equation is obtained by applying the Ritz procedure to the energy functional of the system. Convergence studies are performed to examine the stability of the proposed method, and comparisons of the solutions derived with those reported in the literature are provided to verify its accuracy. Four types of functionally graded rectangular and skew plates—Al/Al₂O₃, Al/ZrO₂, Ti–6Al–4V/Aluminum oxide, and SUS304/Si₃N₄—are included in the study, and the effects of the volume fraction, boundary conditions, and length-to-thickness ratio on their frequency characteristics are discussed in detail.     

High frequency vibration analysis by the complex envelope vectorization

The complex envelope displacement analysis (CEDA) is a procedure to solve high frequency vibration and vibro-acoustic problems, providing the envelope of the physical solution. CEDA is based on a variable transformation mapping the high frequency oscillations into signals of low frequency content and has been successfully applied to one-dimensional systems. However, the extension to plates and vibro-acoustic fields met serious difficulties so that a general revision of the theory was carried out, leading finally to a new method, the complex envelope vectorization (CEV). In this paper the CEV method is described, underlying merits and limits of the procedure, and a set of applications to vibration and vibro-acoustic problems of increasing complexity are presented.     

Natural frequencies of completely free annular and circular plates having polar orthotropy

A simple approximate, yet quite accurate, Ritz method analysis is presented for dealing with vibration of completely free annular plates having polar orthotropic characteristics. It is shown that the method is readily applicable to the determination of approximate frequency values for solid circular plates. The natural frequencies of these plates are obtained for the various orthotropic parameters, and comparison is made with exact values for isotropic cases, showing excellent agreement.     

DETERMINATION OF ELASTIC CONSTANTS OF ANISOTROPIC LAMINATED PLATES USING ELASTIC WAVES AND A PROGRESSIVE NEURAL NETWORK

In this paper, a procedure is suggested to inversely determine the elastic constants of anisotropic laminated plates using a progressive neural network (NN). The surface displacement responses are used as the inputs for the NN model. The outputs of the NN are the elastic constants of anisotropic laminated plates. The hybrid numerical method (HNM) is used to calculate the displacement responses of laminated plates to an incident wave for given elastic constants. The NN model is trained using the results from the HNM. A modified back-propagation learning algorithm with a dynamically adjusted learning rate and an additional jump factor is developed to tackle the possible saturation of the sigmoid function and to speed up the training process for the NN model. The concept of orthogonal array was adopted to generate the representative combinations of elastic constants, which reduces significantly the number of training data while maintaining its data completeness. Once trained, the NN model can be used for on-line determination of the elastic constants if the dynamic displacement responses on the surface of the laminated plate can be obtained. The determined elastic constants are then used in the HNM to calculate the displacement responses. The NN model would go through a progressive retraining process until the calculated displacement responses using the determined results are sufficiently close to the actual responses. This procedure is examined for an actual glass/epoxy laminated plate. It is found that the present procedure is very robust and efficient for determining the elastic constants of anisotropic laminated plates.     

Eigenvalue analysis of Timoshenko beams and axisymmetric Mindlin plates by the pseudospectral method

A study of the free vibration of Timoshenko beams and axisymmetric Mindlin plates is presented. The analysis is based on the Chebyshev pseudospectral method, which has been widely used in the solution of fluid mechanics problems. Clamped, simply supported, free and sliding boundary conditions of Timoshenko beams are treated, and numerical results are presented for different thickness-to-length ratios. Eigenvalues of the axisymmetric vibration of Mindlin plates with clamped, simply supported and free boundary conditions are presented for various thickness-to-radius ratios.     

Free vibration of two elastically coupled rectangular plates with uniform elastic boundary restraints

An analytical method is derived for determining the vibrations of two plates which are generally supported along the boundary edges, and elastically coupled together at an arbitrary angle. The interactions of all four wave groups (bending waves, out-of-plane shearing waves, in-plane longitudinal waves, and in-plane shearing waves) have been taken into account at the junction via four types of coupling springs of arbitrary stiffnesses. Each of the transverse and in-plane displacement functions is expressed as the superposition of a two-dimensional (2-D) Fourier cosine series and several supplementary functions which are introduced to ensure and improve the convergence of the series representation by removing the discontinuities that the original displacement and its derivatives will potentially exhibit at the edges when they are periodically expanded onto the entire x-y plane as mathematically implied by a 2-D Fourier series. The unknown expansions coefficients are calculated using the Rayleigh-Ritz procedure which is actually equivalent to solving the governing equation and the boundary and coupling conditions directly when the assumed solutions are sufficiently smooth over the solution domains. Numerical examples are presented for several different coupling configurations. A good comparison is observed between the current results and the FEA models. Although this study is specifically focused on the coupling of two plates, the proposed method can be directly extended to structures consisting of any number of plates.     

Large amplitude vibrations of circular plates carrying a concentrated mass

A finite element analysis for the large amplitude vibrations of circular plates carrying a concentrated mass is presented in this note. The variation of the fundamental frequency with the central amplitude is obtained for simply supported and clamped plates for various positions and various magnitudes of the concentrated mass.     

用于惯性约束聚变束匀滑的完全连续相位板设计方法

针对惯性约束聚变束匀滑对连续相位板的需要,用改进的盖师贝格－撒克斯通（G－S）算法,进行了完全连续相位板（FCPP）设计方法的研究,在盖师贝格－撒克斯通算法流程中,引人局部替代函数,设计出完全连续的深浮雕相位结构,消除了2π线。     

Pitch change during reverberant decay

The natural frequencies and mode shapes of a number of box beams are calculated by using the finite element displacement method. The structures are considered as assemblages of plates, and in general it is necessary to consider both the in-plane and transverse motion of the plates. A method of representing these two types of motion in the analysis of the vibrations of box beams is presented. A number of box beams of varying sectional parameters are analysed as systems of plates and the results compared with the predictions of Euler and Timoshenko beam theories. The comparisons show that for short beams constructed of thin plates, the new method can successfully represent the localized plate deformations, which cannot be described by beam theory.     

Effect of in-plane inertia on buckling of imperfect plates with large deformations

The influence of in-plane inertia on non-linear dynamic buckling of rectangular initially-imperfect plates is studied. A regular, consistent perturbation technique is used, and both the equations of motion and the boundary conditions are perturbed, yielding a relatively simple procedure for solving an otherwise very involved non-linear problem. Both pulse and vibration buckling during parametric resonance are analyzed. It is shown that, in the former case, the in-plane inertia can be disregarded whereas in the latter it plays an important role for non-slender plates.