Vibration Analysis of a Rectangular Plate

Abstract Presented herein is a detailed analysis of the small, free oscillations of pre- stressed rectangular plates in both pre- and post-buckling ranges. The simply supported plate is stressed either thermally or by the uniaxial in-plane loads on two opposite edges, the other two edges are taken to be either freely movable or immovable, and all the edges are restrained to remain straight. Both the symmetrical and anti-symmetrical small vibration modes superimposed upon both primary- and secondary-buckling, and the coupling among these modes, are studied. A criterion for the existence of coupling is given. Some numerical results are then presented.