LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE DYNAMIC STABILITY AND NONLINEAR PARAMETRIC RESPONSE OF GEOMETRICALLY IMPERFECT RECTANGULAR PLATES

The authors present a rational analysis of the effect of initial geometric imperfections on the dynamic stability and nonlinear parametric response of general rectangular plates, the plate theory used in the analysis may described as the dynamic analog of the von Karman’s large deflection theory and is derived in terms of the stress function, the lateral displacement and the initial geometric imperfection. The governing equations are satisfied using the orthogonality properties of the assumed functions. The temporal response of the system is analyzed using a first-order asymptotic method and various types of resonances are investigated. The temporal equations of motion describing the nonlinear dynamic behaviour of the imperfect plates are also solved using a direct integration method and the results are compared with those obtained by the asymptotic method.