Solid Circular Plate Clamped along Two Antipodal Edge Arcs and Deflected by a Central Transverse Concentrated Force

Abstract

A static, purely flexural mechanical analysis is presented for a Kirchhoff solid circular plate, deflected by a transverse central force, and clamped along two antipodal arcs, the remaining part of the boundary being free. By adopting an integral formulation, the contact reaction is assumed to be formed by four equal concentrated forces acting at the support extremities, accompanied by two distributed moments with radial and circumferential axis, respectively. This plate problem is rephrased in terms of a complex-valued Hilbert singular integral equation of the second kind, whose solution is obtained in analytical, integral form. A design chart is presented that reports the plate central deflection as a function of the angular width of the plate supports.