Development of differential quadrature element method for vibration analysis of mindlin plates

In this paper, a new numerical technique, the differential quadrature element method (DQEM) has been developed for two dimensional vibration analysis of rectangular Mindlin plates. The basic idea of the DQEM is to divide the whole variable domain into several subdomains (elements) and to apply the differential quadrature method (DQM) for each element. The formulations for the DQEM and compatibility conditions between elements are presented in details. Numerical examples are then given to demonstrate the accuracy of this new method. Finally, the brief conclusion remarks are made.