Transient Interaction of a Circular Plate and a Fluid Medium

Abstract

The transient dynamic response of an elastic circular plate subjected to a suddenly applied pressure is determined for several edge boundary conditions. The plate boundary is attached to a semi-infinite, radially rigid tube which is filled with an acoustic fluid, and pressure is applied to the in-vacuo side of the plate. The transient solution is determined by using a technique in which the plate is subjected to a periodic pressure function constructed of appropriately signed and time-shifted Heaviside step functions, and by relying on a physical mechanism which returns the plate and fluid near the plate to an unstrained state of rest between pulses. The plate response is presented for a number of radius-to-thickness ratios and edge boundary conditions when interacting with water. Comparisons are also made with solutions obtained using a plane wave approximation to the fluid field.