Use of equivalent spring method for free vibration analyses of a rectangular plate carrying multiple three-degree-of-freedom spring-mass systems

Due to the complexity of mathematical expressions, the literature concerning the free vibration analysis of plates carrying multiple three-degree-of-freedorn (dof) spring-mass systems is rare. In this paper, the three degrees of freedorn (dof's) for a spring-mass system refer to the translational motion of its lumped mass in the vertical ((z) over bar) direction and the two pitching motions of its lumped mass about the two horizontal ((x) over bar and (y) over bar) axes. The basic concept of this paper is to replace each three-dof springmass system by a set of equivalent springs, so that the free vibration characteristics of a rectangular plate carrying any number of three-dof spring-mass systems can be obtained from those of the same plate supported by the same number of sets of equivalent springs. Since the three dof's of the lumped mass for each three-dof spring-mass system are eliminated to yield a set of equivalent springs, the total dof of the entire vibrating system is not affected by the total number of the spring-mass systems attached to the rectangular plate. However, this is not true in the conventional finite element method (FEM), where the total dof of the entire vibrating system increases three if one more three-dof spring-mass system is attached to the rectangular plate. Hence, the computer storage memory required by using the presented equivalent spring method (ESM) is less than that required by the conventional FEM, and the more the total number of the three-dof spring-mass systems attached to the plate, the more the advantage of the ESM. In addition, since manufacturing a spring with the specified stiffness is much easier than making a three-dof spring-mass system with the specified spring constants and mass magnitude, the presented theory of replacing a three-dof spring-mass system by a set of equivalent springs will be also significant from this viewpoint.