Large Amplitude Dynamic Analysis of Stiffened Plates with Free Edges

Anirban Mitra*, Prasanta Sahoo and Kashinath Saha

Department of Mechanical Engineering, J adavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India
*Corresponding author (Email: samik893@gmail.com, telefax: +91 33 2414 6890)



Abstract Large amplitude free vibration analysis of stiffened
plates subjected to transverse uniformly distributed loading
with free flexural boundary conditions has been presented. Free
edges are taken with different combinations of clamped and
simply supported end conditions. The mathematical formulation
is based on variational form of energy method. Geometric non-
linearity arising out of large deflection is accounted for by
consideration of nonlinear strain-displacement relations. The
analysis is carried out in two steps. First a static analysis is
carried out and then the subsequent dynamic study is taken up
on the basis of known static displacement field. The results are
furnished graphically through backbone curves in the
dimensionless amplitude-frequency plane. The vibration mode
shapes along with contour plots are also provided for specific
cases.

INTRODUCTION
Large amplitude dynamic behaviour of structural elements
differs significantly from its linear counterpart because of the
fact that the stiffness of deformed structures changes
appreciably due to the effect of geometric nonlinearity. It is
observed for all structural elements that the loaded natural
frequencies are significantly different from their linear
counterparts. In the present paper, the study of the large
deformation free vibration analysis of stiffened plates is
presented. Stiffened plates have wide applications in many
branches of modern civil, mechanical, and aerospace
engineering.
Research work on dynamic behaviour of stiffened plates
has evolved through different phases as analysis of such
structures has been carried out through different
methodologies, like orthotropic plate method, finite elements
method, finite difference method, energy method etc. One of
the earlier studies was taken up by Kirk [1], who determined
the natural frequencies of simply supported rectangular plates
stiffened with a single integral stiffener along one of its
centerlines. Varadan and Pandalai [2] investigated large
amplitude free flexural vibrations of eccentrically stiffened
elastic rectangular plates with clamped ends and movable in-
plane edge conditions. Mukherjee and Mukhopadhyay [3]
introduced an isoparametric quadratic stiffened plate bending
element for the free vibration analysis of eccentrically
stiffened plates. Vibration and stability analysis of stiffened
plates through a semi-analytical finite difference method was
performed by Mukhopadhyay [4]. Koko and Olson [5]
developed a new numerical technique for large deflection
elastoplastic analysis of stiffened plates using super finite
elements. They also carried out free vibration analysis of
rectangular plates [6] with discrete stiffener utilizing the
super elements and including the effects of bending and in-
plane effects. Harik and Guo [7] presented a compound finite
element model based on small deflection theory to investigate
free vibration of eccentrically stiffened plates. Chen et al [8]
proposed a spline compound strip method for analyzing the
free vibration problem of stiffened plates. Bedair and
Troitsky [9] studied the fundamental frequency
characteristics of eccentrically and concentrically stiffened
simply supported plates on the basis of energy formulation.
Peng et al [10] analyzed stability and free vibration problem
of stiffened plates via the first-order shear deformable theory
(FSDT) and mesh-free Galerkin method. Sapountzakis and
Mokos [11] developed an improved model presenting a
general solution for the dynamic analysis of plates stiffened
by arbitrarily placed parallel beams.
Review of the literature indicates that studies are primarily
focused on free vibration problem and determination of the
natural frequencies and their corresponding mode shapes. But
works on large amplitude dynamic behavior, specifically
variation of loaded natural frequency with amplitude are quite
limited. The present study deals with large amplitude
dynamic behavior of stiffened plates under uniformly
distributed transverse loading with various boundary
conditions including free edges and looks into amplitude
dependency of the loaded natural frequency.



Fig. 1. Stiffened plate with significant dimensions and coordinate system
ANALYSIS
A stiffened plate with a single stiffener parallel to y-axis
along with the significant dimensions and coordinate system
used for the present analysis is shown in Fig. 1. It is assumed
that the stiffeners are always parallel to the edges of the plate
and they are rigidly connected to the plate surface. The
mathematical formulation is based on the assumption that
plate and stiffener materials are isotropic, homogeneous and
linearly elastic. The thickness of the plate is considered to be
sufficiently small so as to avoid the effect of shear
deformation and rotary inertia. Although Fig. 1 shows a
single y-direction stiffener, the formulation is carried out for
biaxially stiffened plates with generalized spacing.
The present analysis has the objective of studying the
relationship between amplitude and vibration frequency for
stiffened plates. A domain decomposition method, which
divides the computational domain into sub-domains
depending on the number, orientation and location of
stiffeners, is employed to ensure adequate number of
computation points around the location of stiffeners. The
large amplitude vibration problem is analyzed in two steps.
The static problem corresponding to a transverse loading is
solved first and subsequently the dynamic problem is taken
up with the known displacement field. As the solution of the
dynamic problem is obtained through the solution of the
static displacement field, the effect of statically imposed large
amplitude of vibration is incorporated into the dynamic
system. Both the static and dynamic problems are formulated
through variational form of energy principle. Geometric
nonlinearity is accounted for by consideration of nonlinear
strain-displacement relations.
A. Static Analysis
From the principle of minimum total potential energy of
the system, ( ) 0 = +V U . (1)
Here, U is total strain energy stored in the system, V is
work function or potential of the external forces and is the
Variational operator. In case of large displacement analysis of
plates, both bending and stretching effects are taken into
consideration. So, total strain energy stored in plate (
p
U ) is
given by,
m b p
U U U + = , where,
b
U and
m
U are strain
energy due to bending and mid-plane stretching of the plate,
respectively. So, total strain energy stored in the system is,

= =
+ + + =
y x
ns
q
q
sy
ns
p
p
sx m b
U U U U U
1 1
) ( . (2)

p
sx
U ,
q
sy
U are strain energies stored in p-th stiffener along
x-direction and q-th stiffener along y-direction and
y x
ns ns ,
are number of stiffeners in x- and y- direction respectively.
The expressions for
b
U ,
m
U ,
p
sx
U and
q
sy
U are given below.

d d
w w w
b a
w
b
w
a
ab
D
U
b

=

2
2
2
2
2
2
2 2
1
0
1
0
2
2
2
2 2
2
2
1
) 1 ( 2
1 1
) (
2
(3)

d d
w w v
b a
w w u
ab
v
a
v u
ab
u
b
w u
ab
w v
b a
v u
ab
w
b
w
a
w v
b
v
b
w u
a
u
a
ab
t E
U
p p
m

=

2 2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
2
1
0
1
0
2
3
2
2 2
2 2
1 2 1
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
4
1 1 1
1 1
) (
) 1 ( 2
(4)

d
d
dw
d
du
a
d
dw
a
d
du
a
A
d
dw
d
w d
a d
w d
d
du
a
Q
d
v d
a
I
d
w d
a
I
a E
U
p
y
p
y
p
yz
p
y
s p
sx

=

2
3
4
4
2
2
2
2
2
4 2
2
3
2
2
2
4
2
2
2
4
1
0
1
4
1 1
1 2
1 1
2
(5)

d
d
dw
d
dv
b
d
dw
b
d
dv
b
A
d
dw
d
w d
b d
w d
d
dv
b
Q
d
u d
b
I
d
w d
b
I
b E
U
q
x
q
x
q
xz
q
x
s q
sy

=

2
3
4
4
2
2
2
2
2
4 2
2
3
2
2
2
4
2
2
2
4
1
0
1
4
1 1
1 2
1 1
2
(6)
Here, u , v and w denote the displacements along x-, y- and
z- directions, respectively. It is to be noted that u and v are
deformation displacement whereas w is body displacement
or deflection.
p
E ,
s
E , are material properties of plate and
stiffener, and ( ) ) 1 ( 12
2 3
=
p p
t E D is flexural rigidity of the
plate.
q
x
p
y
I I , and
q
xz
p
yz
I I , are area moment of inertia of the p-
th (x-direction) and q-th (y-direction) stiffener about the
coordinate axes of the plate. They can be determined by
carrying out suitable transformation on the moment of inertia
about the centroidal axes of the stiffener cross-section. For
example, in case of a single y-direction stiffener as shown in
Fig. 1,
1
x
I and
1
xz
I are determined by using following
relations:
2 1 ' 1 1
.e A I I
x x x
+ = ,
2 1 1 ' 1 1
) .(
stf x xz xz
a A I I + = , where,
) 12 (
3
1 1 ' 1
sy sy x
t b I = and ) 12 (
1
3
1 '
sy sy xz
t b I = are moment of inertia
about the major and minor axis of the stiffener cross-section
and
1 1 1
sy sy x
t b A = , a x
stf stf
1 1
= and 2 / ) (
1
sy p
t t e + = .
q
x
p
y
Q Q , are
the first moment of area about the plate coordinate axes and
q
x
p
y
A A , are the cross-sectional areas of the p-th and q-th
stiffeners along x- and y- direction respectively. e A Q
x x
.
1 1
= for
the case of uniaxially stiffened plate shown in Fig. 1. Similar
nomenclatures have been used for x-directional stiffeners
also.
For a stiffened plate under uniform transverse
pressure, p , total potential energy is given by,

=
1
0
1
0
) ( ) ( d d pw ab V . (7)
B. Approximate displacement fields
The displacement fields w , u and v are expressed by
linear combinations of unknown parameters
i
d as follows:
( ) ( ) , ,
1

=
=
nw
i
i i
d w
( ) ( )

+
+ =

=
nu nw
nw i
nw i i
d u
1
, , (8)
( ) ( ) , ,
1

+ +
+ + =

=
nv nu nw
nu nw i
nu nw i i
d v
where, ) , ( , ) , ( and ) , ( are sets of orthogonal
functions and nw, nu and nv are number of functions for w ,
u and v , respectively. The functions ) , (
i
describe the
displacements due to plate bending and the start function for
this comes from the flexural boundary condition. The start
functions for stretching of the plate come from the zero in-
plane displacement boundary conditions i.e. 0 = u at 1 , 0 =
and 0 = v at 1 , 0 = . The higher-order functions are
generated from the selected start functions following a two-
dimensional implementation of the Gram-Schmidt
orthogonalization scheme. The necessary rigid body modes
required in specific cases are incorporated by adding
appropriate functions to the corresponding sets of orthogonal
functions.
The approximate two-dimensional displacement fields
given by (8) require suitable modification in order to be
compatible with stiffeners, which are one-dimensional
elements. An interpolation function is used on the
displacement values to transform the two-dimensional fields
into the one-dimensional displacement function at the
location of the stiffener.
C. Governing system of equations
Substituting Equations (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7) and (8) in
(1) gives the governing set of equations in matrix form,
[ ]{ } { } f d K = . (9)
The total stiffness matrix [ ] K in (9) is given
by,[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

= =
+ + + =
y x
ns
q
q
sy
ns
p
p
sx m b
K K K K K
1 1
, [ ]
b
K and
[ ]
m
K being the contributions from bending and stretching
action of the plate, whereas [ ]
p
sx
K and [ ]
q
sy
K are stiffness
matrices of the p-th stiffener along x-direction and q-th
stiffener along y-direction, respectively. The load vector is
represented by { } f and { } d is the vector of unknown
coefficients.
D. Solution methodology for static displacement field
The set of governing equations, given by (9) is nonlinear in
nature as the stiffness matrix ([ ] K ) itself is a function of
unknown coefficients and is solved by direct substitution
method using successive relaxation scheme. For each load-
step, the values of the unknown coefficients are assumed to
evaluate the stiffness matrix. Using this matrix new values of
unknown coefficients are calculated from the
expression{ } [ ] { } f K d
1
= . Calculated values are compared
with corresponding values in the previous iteration and
convergence is achieved when the difference is below a
predefined value of error limit ( ). Otherwise the values of
{ } d are modified with a relaxation parameter and they are
taken as the next approximation for the values of { } d . Once
convergence is achieved for a particular load step, an
increment is given on the load and iteration starts with the
present solution for { } d .
E. Dynamic Analysis
The governing set of equations for the dynamic problem is
derived following Hamiltons principle, which states that,
( ) 0
2
1
2
1
=

d L d V U T . (10)
Here, L represents the Lagrangian and T, U and V are thetotal
kinetic energy of the system, total strain energy stored in the
system and work function or potential of the external forces
respectively. and denote the variational operator and
time coordinate respectively. The total kinetic energy (T) is
summation of plate kinetic energy (
p
T ) and stiffener kinetic
energy (
s
T ).

= =
+ + = + =
y x
ns
q
q
sy
ns
p
p
sx p s p
T T T T T T
1 1
(11)
where,
p
sx
T ,
q
sy
T are kinetic energies of p-th stiffener along x-
direction and q-th stiffener along y-direction, respectively and
the expressions for the kinetic energies are given below.


d d
v u w
ab t T
p p p

=

2 2 2
1
0
1
0
) (
2
1

d
v u w
ab t T
p
sx
p
sx s
p
sx

=

2 2 2
1
0
) (
2
1
(12)

d
v u w
bb t T
q
sy
q
sy s
q
sy

=

2 2 2
1
0
) (
2
1

The dynamic displacements ) , , ( w , ) , , ( u and
) , , ( v are assumed to be separable in space and time.
They are expressed as shown below:
( ) ( ) ( )
i
nw
i
i i
d w , , ,
1

=
=
( ) ( ) ( )
nw i
nu nw
nw i
nw i i
d u

+
+ =

=
1
, , , (13)
( ) ( ) ( )
nu nw i
nv nu nw
nu nw i
nu nw i i
d v

+ +
+ + =

= , , ,
1

Here, { } d is a new set of unknown parameters to be
evaluated, which forms the eigenvectors of the dynamic
problem in matrix form. The space functions are completely
known from the earlier static analysis and the set of temporal
function is expressed by ( )


i
i
e = , where represents the
natural frequency of the system. Substituting the above
dynamic displacements (13) along with equations (2), (3),
(4), (5), (6), (7) and (12) in eqn. (10), the governing
differential equation of the dynamic system can be written in
the form, [ ]{ } [ ]{ } 0
2
= + d K d M . (14)
Here, [ ] M is the mass matrix, which is a square matrix of
order (nw+nu+nv). The standard eigenvalue problem of (14)
is solved numerically to calculate the natural frequencies
(
i
) by using IMSL routines.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The present analysis is undertaken for uniaxially single
stiffened rectangular plates under uniformly distributed load.
To keep the length of the paper within a limit, only some
results pertaining to combinations of clamped (C) and simply
supported (S) boundary conditions with a single free (F) edge
are presented. In this study, the nomenclature of the boundary
conditions of the plate has been specified through its edge
conditions (C, S or F) starting from the edge 0 = x and
proceeding in counter-clockwise direction.
The number of functions for each of the plate
displacements (u, v and w) is taken as 25. The tolerance value
of the error limit ( ) for the numerical iteration scheme is
taken as 0.50 % and the relaxation parameter ( ) is 0.50. The
results are presented for a rectangular stiffened plate with a =
0.60 m, b = 0.41 m and t
p
= 0.00633 m, having a central y-
direction stiffener ( 5 . 0
1
=
stf
) of rectangular cross-section
(0.0127 m x 0.02222 m). Following material properties are
used to generate the results: = =
s p
E E 211 GPa,
p
=
s
=
7830 kg/m
3
and =0.30.
The results of the static analysis (loaddeflection curve)
incorporating geometric nonlinearity are validated through
comparison with Sheikh and Mukhopadhyay [12], Rao et al
[13] and Koko and Olson [5].The comparison plot for central
and maximum deflection of a centrally stiffened rectangular
clamped plate (taken from [5]) under transverse pressure
loading is shown in Fig. 2 and good agreement with other
results is observed.

Fig. 2. Comparison of load deflection behaviour of clamped stiffened plate

Table 1 shows the comparison of linear dimensionless free
vibration frequency parameters ( D t a
p
/
2
) with results of
Leissa [14] for an unstiffened square plate, simulated in the
present formulation by zero stiffener dimension. Good
agreement is observed for all the cases. Fig. 3 depicts the
variation of dimensionless free vibration frequency parameter
for the fundamental mode with change in stiffener to plate
thickness ratio for a CCCF plate. It is seen that the frequency
parameter decreases with decrease in stiffener thickness and
as the thickness becomes negligibly small the parameter
value converges towards that of an unstiffened plate.

TABLE I
COMPARISON OF LINEAR DIMENSIONLESS FREQUENCY PARAMETER FOR AN
UNSTIFFENED PLATE
Mode
Boundary
Condition
Research
work by
1 2 3 4 5
Leissa 24.012 40.029 63.471 76.745 80.704
CCCF
Present 23.939 40.029 63.280 78.031 80.668
Leissa 23.469 35.604 63.135 66.809 77.495
CSCF
Present 23.401 35.606 62.964 67.303 77.496
Leissa 12.679 33.068 41.685 63.005 72.398
SCSF
Present 12.687 33.079 41.715 63.079 73.756
Leissa 11.669 27.764 41.193 59.072 61.867
SSSF
Present 11.687 27.772 41.235 59.162 62.391


Fig. 3. Variation of dimensionless free vibration frequency parameter for the
first mode with change in plate to stiffener thickness ratio

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)
Fig. 4. Backbone curves for uniaxially single stiffened rectangular plate
under UDL for different boundary conditions: (a) CCCF, (b) CSCF, (c)
SCSF and (d) SSSF.
The large amplitude dynamic behaviour of a stiffened plate
is shown graphically as the backbone curves for the first six
modes in the dimensionless amplitude-frequency plane. The
ratio of the maximum plate deflection to plate thickness is
taken as the dimensionless amplitude (
p
t w
max
) while the
dimensionless frequency (
1

nl
) is obtained by
normalizing the nonlinear frequency (
nl
) with the
corresponding fundamental linear frequency (
1
). The
maximum value of dimensionless amplitude (
p
t w
max
) is
taken as 2.0 for all the cases. The backbone curves for
different boundary conditions (CCCF, CSCF, SCSF and
SSSF) are shown in Fig. 4(a-d). The general trend of the
backbone curves, observed from the figures, is that the free
vibration frequency increases as the deflection of the
stiffened plate increases. The specific reason for this trend
can be attributed to the fact that the plate stiffens with
increase in deflection due to the effect of geometric
nonlinearity, resulting in the increase of nonlinear frequency.
The phenomenon of mode switching between the third and
fourth backbone curves has been observed for all the cases. A
closer inspection reveals that there is also mode switching
between the sixth and seventh backbone curves, evident from
slight change in direction of the sixth curve. The absence of
the seventh mode gives the sixth curve a broken appearance.
Mode shape plots for the first six vibration modes of
uniaxially single stiffened rectangular plate under uniform
transverse pressure have been presented for the case of CCCF
boundary condition (Fig. 4(a)) in fig. 5(a-f). For each mode
of vibration, two mode shape plots corresponding to linear
(
p
t w
max
=0) and nonlinear (
p
t w
max
=2.00) frequencies
are given. In each figure, the surface plot and its
corresponding contour plot for the vibrating stiffened plate
have been presented. Interchange of linear and nonlinear
mode shapes depicted in Figs. 5(c) and 5(d) appropriately
support the case of mode switching between the third and
fourth mode.


(a) Mode 1 : w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0

(b) Mode 2 : w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0 (Contd.)

(c) Mode 3 : w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0

(d) Mode 4 : w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0

(e) Mode 5 : w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0

(f) Mode 6: w
max
/ t
p
= 0.0 w
max
/ t
p
= 2.0

Fig. 5. Mode shape plots for uniaxially single stiffened rectangular plate with
CCCF boundary condition (corresponding to backbone curves in Fig. 4(a))
under UDL: (a) Mode 1, (b) Mode 2, (c) Mode 3, (d) Mode 4, (e) Mode 5
and (f) Mode 6.

CONCLUSION
A large-amplitude free vibration analysis of stiffened plates
with free edges subjected to transverse pressure loading has
been presented. The results are validated with the published
results of other researchers and fairly good agreement is
observed. The dynamic behaviour has been presented in the
form of backbone curves in a dimensionless frequency-
amplitude plane. The results indicate hardening type non-
linearity for the system. The phenomenon of mode switching
has been observed. Three dimensional mode shape plots
along with contour plots are provided to get a better
understanding of the nature of influence of vibration
amplitude on the dynamic behaviour of the system.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The first author acknowledges the research support received
from AICTE, India, vide File No.:1-
10/RID/NDF/PG/(17)2008-09 Dated : 13.03.2009.

REFERENCE
[1] C. L. Kirk, Natural frequencies of stiffened rectangular
plates, J. Sound Vib., vol. 13(4), pp. 375-388, 1970.
[2] T.K. Varadan and K.A.V. Pandalai, Large amplitude
flexural vibration of eccentrically stiffened plates, J.
Sound Vib., vol. 67(3), pp. 329-340, 1979.
[3] A. Mukherjee and M. Mukhopadhyay, Finite element
free vibration of eccentrically stiffened plates, Comp. &
Struct., vol. 30(6), pp.1303-1317, 1988.
[4] M. Mukhopadhyay, Vibration and stability of stiffened
plates by semianalytic finite difference method, Part II:
Consideration of bending and axial displacements, J.
Sound Vib., vol. 130(1), pp. 41-53, 1989.
[5] T.S. Koko and M.D. Olson, Non-linear analysis of
stiffened plates using super elements, Int. J. Num. M.
Eng., vol. 3(2), pp. 319-343, 1991.
[6] T.S. Koko and M.D. Olson, Vibration analysis of
stiffened plates by super elements, J. Sound Vib., vol.
158(1), pp. 149-167, 1992.
[7] I.E. Harik and M. Guo, Finite element analysis of
eccentrically stiffened plates in free vibration, Comp. &
Struct., vol. 49(6), pp. 1007-1015, 1993.
[8] C.J . Chen, W. Liu and S.M. Chern, Vibration analysis
of stiffened plates, Comp. & Struct., vol. 50(4), pp. 471-
480, 1994.
[9] O.K. Bedair and M. Troitsky, A study of fundamental
frequency characteristics of eccentrically and
concentrically simply supported stiffened plates, Int. J.
Mech. Sci., vol. 39(11), pp. 1257-1272, 1997.
[10] L.X. Peng, K.M. Liew and S. Kitipornchai, Buckling
and free vibration analyses of stiffened plates using the
FSDT mesh-free method, J. Sound Vib., vol. 289(3), pp.
147-164, 2006.
[11] E.J . Sapountzakis and V.G. Mokos, An improved model
for the dynamic analysis of plates stiffened by parallel
beams, Eng. Struct., vol. 30(6), pp. 1720-1733, 2008.
[12] A.H. Shiekh and M. Mukhopadhyay, Geometric non-
linear analysis of stiffened plates by spline finite strip
method, Comp. & Struct., vol. 76(3), pp. 765-785, 2000.
[13] D.V. Rao, A.H. Sheikh and M. Mukhopadhyay, A finite
element large displacement analysis of stiffened plates,
Comp. & Struct., vol. 47(6), pp. 987-993, 1993.
[14] A. Leissa, The free vibration of rectangular plates, J.
Sound Vib., vol. 31(3), pp. 257293, 1973.