Vibration Analysis of Mindlin Plates with Cracks by MLSElement Method

Abstract This paper presents an investigation on the vibration behaviour of rectangular Mindlin plates with one or more preexisting through cracks. The moving least square element (MLS-element) method recently developed by the authors is further extended to carry out this study. The shape functions of an element for the displacement fields can be derived based on the MLS interpolation technique. The MLS-element method possesses the flexibility of finite element method and the advantages of MLS technique which can improve the accuracy of the analysis by increasing the number of MLS points within the elements or the number of terms of the basis functions in the MLS interpolation. Convergence and comparison studied for plates with cracks are carried out to verify the correctness and accuracy of the MLS-element method. Vibration frequencies for Mindlin plates with multiple cracks are obtained. The influence of the crack locations and lengths on the vibration behaviour of plates is presented and discussed.