FREE VIBRATION AND BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF HIGHLY SKEWED PLATES BY LEAST SQUARES-BASED FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD

It is well-known that stress singularities occur at the obtuse corners of skew plates, especially when the skew angles are large. Owing to the stress singularities, accurate bending results, vibration frequencies and buckling loads of highly skewed plates are difficult to obtain accurately. In this paper, the mesh-free least squares-based finite difference (LSFD) method is proposed for solving the free vibration and buckling problems of highly skewed plates. As such vibration and buckling results are scarce in the open literature, the method was verified by comparing the LSFD solutions with existing ones having a skew angle theta <= 70 degrees, or by carrying out convergence studies. The vibration and buckling results for plates with very large skew angle (theta = 80 degrees) are presented for the first time. The close agreement observed in the comparison studies and the good convergence behavior of the LSFD solutions provide the confidence that these vibration and buckling results predicted by the LSFD method are of good accuracy.