AN ELASTIC WAVE TECHNIQUE FOR THE FREE-VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF PLATE ASSEMBLIES

A method is presented for the free vibration analysis of a class of plate assembly which includes an orthogonally stiffened flat plate as a special case. The method is based on the analysis of free elastic wave propagation through the structure, and consists of applying the relevant wave transmission and reflection coefficients at the structural discontinuities. Regardless of the structural complexity, the problem of calculating the natural frequencies is reduced to that of solving two simultaneous non-linear algebraic equations. In the case of a periodic plate assembly the method yields closed form solutions for the propagation constants. It is shown that the method is basically a reformulation of Bolotin's asymptotic method, and the relative simplicity of the approach is illustrated by application to a number of example structures. © 1991.