Exact Free Vibration Analysis for Plate Built-Up Structures under Comprehensive Combinations of Boundary Conditions

Abstract

In this research, an exact dynamic stiffness model for spatial plate built-up structures under comprehensive combinations of different boundary conditions is newly proposed. Dynamic stiffness formulations for plate elements with 16 different types of supported opposite edges and arbitrarily supported boundary conditions along other edges are developed, which makes the dynamic stiffness method (DSM) more applicable to engineering problems compared to existing works. The Wittrick–Williams algorithm of the DSM is applied with the explicit expressions of the J0 count for plate elements under all above support conditions. In return, there is no need to refine the element in the DSM, and thus, it becomes immensely efficient. Moreover, the present theory is applied for exact free vibration analysis within the whole frequency range of three built-up structures which are commonly encountered in engineering. The results show that the DSM gives exact results with as much as 100-fold computational efficiency advantage over the commercial finite element method. Besides, benchmark results are also provided.