Three-dimensional vibration analysis of rectangular plates with mixed boundary conditions

Three-dimensional vibration solutions are presented for rectangular plates with mixed boundary conditions, based on the small strain linear elasticity theory. The analysis is focused on two kinds of rectangular plates, the boundaries of which are partially fixed while the others are free. One of those studied is a rectangular plate with partially fixed boundaries symmetrically arranged around four corners and the other one is a rectangular plate with partially fixed boundaries around one corner only. A global analysis approach is developed. The Ritz method is applied to derive the governing eigenvalue equation by minimizing the energy functional of the plate. The admissible functions for all displacement components are taken as a product of a characteristic boundary function and the triplicate Chebyshev polynomial series defined in the plate domain. The characteristic boundary functions are composed of a product of four components of which each corresponds to one edge of the plate. The R-function method is applied to construct the characteristic boundary function components for the edges With mixed boundary conditions. The convergence and comparison studies demonstrate the accuracy and correctness of the present method. The influence of the length of the fixed boundaries and the plate thickness on frequency parameters of square plates has been studied in detail. Some valuable results are given in the form of tables and figures, which can serve as the benchmark for the further research.