Free vibration and buckling analyses of curved plate frames using finite element method

This study investigates the free vibration and buckling analyses of isotropic curved plate structures fixed at all ends. The Kirchhoff-Love Plate Theory (KLPT) and Finite Element Method (FEM) are employed to model the curved structure. In order to perform the finite element analysis, a four-node quadrilateral element with 5 degrees of freedom (DOF) at each node is utilized. Additionally, the drilling effect (& theta;z) is considered as minimal to satisfy the DOF of the structure. Lagrange's equation of motion is used in order to obtain the first ten natural frequencies and the critical buckling values of the structure. The effects of various radii of curvatures and aspect ratio on the natural frequency and critical buckling load values for the single-bay and two -bay curved frames are investigated within this scope. A computer code based on finite element analysis is developed to perform free vibration and buckling analysis of curved plate frames. The natural frequency and critical buckling load values of the present study are compared with ANSYS R18.2 results. It has been concluded that the results of the present study are in good agreement with ANSYS results for different radii of curvatures and aspect ratio values of both single-bay and two-bay structures.