The influence of corner stress singularities on the vibration characteristics of rhombic plates with combinations of simply supported and free edges

This paper offers accurate flexural vibration solutions for rhombic plates with simply supported and free edge conditions. A cornerstone here is that the analysis explicitly considers the bending stress singularities that occur in the two opposite, hinged-hinged and/or hinged-free corners having obtuse angles of the rhombic plates. These singularities become significant to the vibration solution as the rhombic plate becomes highly skewed (i.e. the obtuse angles increase). The classical Ritz method is employed with the assumed normal displacement field constructed from a hybrid set of (1) admissible and mathematically complete algebraic polynomials, and (2) comparison functions (termed here as "corner functions") which account for the bending stress singularities at the obtuse hinged-hinged and/or hinged-free corners. It is shown that the corner functions accelerate the convergence of solutions, and that these functions are required if accurate solutions are to be obtained for highly skewed plates. Accurate nondimensional frequencies and normalized contours of the vibratory transverse displacement are presented for rhombic plates having a large enough skew angle of 75° (i.e. obtuse angles of 165°), so that the influence of the stress singularities is large. Frequencies and mode shapes of isosceles triangular, hinged-free plates are also available from the data presented. ° 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.