An analytical solution for bending of transversely isotropic thick rectangular plates with variable thickness

Abstract

In this study, the bending solution of simply supported transversely isotropic thick rectangular plates with thickness variations is provided using displacement potential functions. To achieve this purpose, governing partial differential equations in terms of displacements are obtained as the quadratic and fourth order. Then, the governing equations are solved using the separation of variables method satisfying exact boundary conditions. The advantage of the purposed method is that there is no limitation on the thickness of the plate or the way the plate thickness is being varied. No simplifying assumption in the analysis process leads to the applicability and reliability of the present method to plates with any arbitrarily chosen thickness. In order to confirm the accuracy of the proposed solution, the obtained results are compared with existing published analytical works for thin variable thickness and thick constant thickness plate. Also, due to the lack of analytical research on thick plates with variable thickness, the obtained results are verified using the finite element method which shows excellent agreement. The results show that the maximum displacement of the plates with variable thickness is moved from the center toward the thinner plate edge. In addition, results exhibit the profound effects of both thickness and aspect ratio on stress distribution along the thickness of the plate. Results also show that varying thickness has not a profound impact on bending and twisting moments in transversely isotropic plates. Five different materials consist of four transversely isotropic and one isotropic, as a special case, are considered in this paper, which it is shown that the material properties have a more considerable impact on higher thickness plate.