Accurate vibration analysis of thick, cracked rectangular plates

This work applies the Ritz method to accurately determine the frequencies and nodal patterns of thick, cracked rectangular plates analyzed using Mindlin plate theory. Two types of cracked configuration are considered, namely, side crack and internal crack. To enhance the capabilities of the Ritz method in dealing with cracked plates, new sets of admissible functions are proposed to represent the behaviors of true solutions along the crack. The proposed admissible functions appropriately describe the stress singularity behaviors around a crack tip and the discontinuities of transverse displacement and bending rotations across the crack. The present solutions monotonically converge to the exact frequencies as upper bounds when the number of admissible functions increases. The validity and accuracy of the present solutions are confirmed through comprehensive convergence studies and comparison with the published results based on the classical thin plate theory. The proposed approach is further employed to investigate the effects of the length, location, and orientation of crack on frequencies and nodal patterns of simply supported and cantilevered cracked rectangular plates. The results shown are the first ones available in the published literature.