Rectangular Plates

51

Based upon physical considerations and due to the symmetry of the plate and boundary conditions, the maximum deection occurs at the center of the plate (x a=2; y b=2) and its value is shown next: wmax
mn 1 1 X 16p0 X 1 2 1 6 :  D m1;3;... n1;3;... mn m=a2 n=b2 2

Here, sin m=2 and sin n=2 are replaced by 1m1=2 and 1n1=2 , respectively. It can be observed that this series converges very rapidly, and the consideration of two terms gives an accuracy sufcient for all practical purposes. In particular, for the case of a square plate (a b), we obtain   16p a4 1 1 1 4 a4 p p a4 . . . % 6 0 0:00416 0 ; wmax 6 0 D  D 4 100 100  D or substituting for D 12Eh and making  0:3, we obtain 1  2 wmax % 0:0454 p0 a4 : Eh3
3

The error of this result compared with an exact solution is about 2.5% [3]. It is observed that the series for the bending and twisting moments given by Eqs (3.21) do not converge as rapidly as that of the series for the deections. The maximum bending moments, found at the center of the plate, are determined by applying Eqs (3.21b) and (3.21c). The rst term of this series for a square plate for  0:3 yields Mx;max My;max 0:0534p0 a2 : c

The exact solution for the bending moments at the center of the square plate for  0:3 is the following [3]: Mx;max My;max 0:0479p0 a2 : d

The error of solution (c) is about 11.5 per;, and that is worse than that for the deections. The maximum normal stress at the center of the square plate produced by the moments of Eq. (d), by application of Eqs (2.15) is determined to be x;max y;max 2 0a 0:287 ph 2 . Let us study the essential characteristics of the transverse shear forces as applied to the simply supported rectangular plate of Example 3.1. To simplify our analysis, we use only a single harmonic approximation of a uniformly distributed loading and solution also. However, the general conclusions will be valid for any harmonic approximations of the solution. From Eq. (a), we compute the following for m n 1: p11 16p0 2 and p 16p0 x y sin sin : a b 2

Retaining also only one term in the series (a), we obtain the following expression for the deection: