Mode shapes and stress-resultants of circular Mindlin plates with free edges

Presented herein are exact vibration mode shapes and modal stress-resultants for freely vibrating, circular Mindlin plates with free edges. These documented solutions are important in the hydroelastic analysis of very large circular floating structures (VLFS) which are commonly modeled as plates with free edges. The exact vibration solutions will enable engineers to obtain a very accurate set of deflections and stress-resultants for circular VLFS under the action of waves. Such benchmark results will allow engineers and researchers to ascertain the accuracy of whatever numerical techniques that are eventually proposed for predicting accurate hydroelastic responses of arbitrarily shaped VLFS.