Free, transverse vibrations of thin plates with discontinuous boundary conditions

Vibrations of circular and rectangular plates clamped on part of the boundary and simply supported along the remainder are analyzed by means of a method of perturbation of boundary conditions. This approach appears to be simple and straightforward, giving excellent results for the first mode and its versatility permits to extend it to higher modes of vibration without difficulty. Furthermore, it is shown that the fundamental frequency coefficient can also be determined using a modified Galerkin approach and very simple polynomial coordinate functions which yield good engineering accuracy. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.