A simple and unified displacement field for three-dimensional vibration analysis of prestressed circular plates

Abstract

In this study a simple displacement field is proposed for finite element vibration analysis of circular plates. The displacement field is a combination of a conventional field, which is very popular for three-dimensional vibration analysis of circular plates or cylinders, and another field, which is most general for axisymmetric vibration. The investigation here is intended, through mathematical formulation and examples, to verify the existence of coupled axisymmetric vibration modes. These modes cannot be found by conventional displacement field, but can easily be revealed by the present model. Validity and accuracy of the proposed displacement field to show all the prominent vibration modes of circular plates or cylinder-like structures is also demonstrated by comparing results using the present method with those of a three-dimensional finite element analysis and experiments.