Nonlinear Analysis of Thick Circular Plates

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the geometrically nonlinear axisymmetric static and transient analysis of moderately thick cylindrically orthotropic circular plates subjected to uniformly distributed and discrete central loads. Shear deformation and rotary inertia are included in the analysis. Differential equations in terms of the transverse displacement, w, the rotation of the normal to the middle surface, ϕ, and the stress function, ψ, are employed. These three field variables are expanded in finite power series and the discretized equations are obtained by using the orthogonal point collocation method in the space domain and the Newmark‐β scheme in the time domain. Results are presented for immovable clamped and simply supported plates for static and step function loads. The effect of transverse shear is investigated for isotropic, transversely isotropic and orthotropic plates.