Harmonic Analysis of a Simply Supported Plate

Karan M. Doshi and Rohith Gandhi

1. Introduction In this document, the harmonic analysis of a simply supported plate has been performed. Subsequently, the results are compared with the modal analysis of the plate and also with the results given by the elastic plate vibration theory by Ventsel and Krauthammer (2001). The calculations for this theory are performed using MATLAB. The results from the three sets are compared with each other. It is seen that the displacement and the stress responses compare well with each other at low frequencies while at higher frequencies, a translational shift is observed with respect to the frequency domain. 2. Simply Supported Plate model The rectangular plate has the dimensions of 4000mm in length and 800mm width. A thickness of 11mm is selected. The material properties correspond to those of steel. The FE model of the plate is shown in Fig 1. Uniformly distributed pressure loading is applied on the plate as the harmonic load.

Fig 1. Schematic of the Simply supported plate

3. Results The modal frequencies of the plate are listed in Table 1 Table 1: Modes of the simply supported plate Mode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Frequency (Hz) 1.378 1.5514 1.8376 2.234 2.7389 3.3508 4.0692 4.8935 5.3294 5.4957 Mode 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Frequency (Hz) 5.7723 5.8235 6.1588 6.6545 6.8589 7.2585 7.9704 7.9995 8.7894 9.2452

While the frequencies listed in Table 1, tally well in general with the Harmonic analysis results from ANSYS, a further step is taken to compare the ANSYS results with available/analytical results. For this reference is made to the book by Ventsell and Krauthammer (2001). The analytical displacement and stresses are obtained at the centre of the plate using a code written in MATLAB. The displacement response is shown in Fig 2. The stress responses in X and Y directions are shown in Figs 3 & 4 respectively.

Fig 2. Displacement response obtained at the centre of the plate

Fig 3. Stress response in X direction (at centre of plate)

Fig 4. Stress response in Y direction (at centre of plate) It is observed that from the plots above, the results from ANSYS and results using the analytical formulation correlate well for low frequency ranges. Whereas the frequency increases, a shift is seen between the results from the analytical formulation and the ANSYS FE solution. Since the analytical solution considers only the out of plane displacement Uz as the variable, while FE analyses consider all six degrees of freedom at a given point, the shift in results may be explained stating that the stiffness of the plate at higher frequencies is represented differently because various other modes are excited which are non flexural. References 1. Timoschenko, S. & Woinowsky Krieger,S. (1959). Theory of plates and shells. Mc Graw Hill book company. 2. Ventsel, E & Krauthammer T. (2001). Thin Plates and Shells. Theory, analysis and application.