Free Vibration Analysis of Rectangular Plates With Multiple Rectangular Openings and Arbitrary Edge Constraints

Free vibration analysis of plates with openings represents an important issue in naval architecture and ocean engineering applications. Namely, they are often primary design members of complex structures and knowledge about their dynamic behavior becomes a prerogative for the proper structural design. This paper deals with application of assumed mode method to free vibration analysis of rectangular plates with multiple rectangular openings at arbitrary defined locations. Developed method can be applied to both thin and thick plates as well as to classical and non-classical edge constraints. In the assumed mode method natural frequencies and mode shapes of a corresponding plate are determined by solving an eigenvalue problem of a multi-degree-of-freedom system matrix equation derived by using Lagrange’s equations of motion. The developed procedure actually represents an extension of a method for the natural vibration analysis of rectangular plates without openings, which has been recently presented in the relevant literature. The effect of an opening is taken into account in a simple and intuitive way, i.e. by subtracting its energy from the total plate energy without opening. Illustrative numerical examples include dynamic analysis of rectangular plates with single and multiple rectangular openings with various thicknesses and different combinations of boundary conditions. Also, the influence of the rectangular opening area on the plate dynamic response is analyzed. The comparisons of the results with those obtained using the finite element method (FEM) is also provided, and very good agreement is achieved. Finally, related conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future investigations are presented.