STRIP DISTRIBUTED TRANSFER FUNCTION METHOD FOR ANALYSIS OF PLATES

A semi-analytical method, called the strip distributed transfer function method, is developed for analysis of plate structures that are composed of rectangular plates. In the method, a rectangular plate (substructure) is divided into a number of strips; the response of each strip is interpolated in the unknown nodal line displacements, which are functions of the strip longitudinal co-ordinate and time. The nodal line displacements are determined in an exact and closed form by the distributed transfer functions that are defined along the strips. Synthesis of the substructures using the strip distributed transfer functions yields accurate prediction of the static and dynamic response, natural frequencies and buckling loads of the structure. The proposed method is compared with some existing techniques in numerical examples