Vibration of a Simply Supported L-Shaped Plate

Recently Solecki (1996) has shown that a differential equation for vibration of a rectangular plate with a cutout can be reduced to boundary integral equations. This was accomplished by filling the cutout with a “patch” made of the same material as the rest of the plate and separated from it by an infinitesimal gap. Thanks to this procedure it was possible to apply finite Fourier transformation of discontinuous functions in a rectangular domain. Subsequent application of the available boundary conditions led to a system of boundary integral equations. A plate simply supported along the perimeter, and fixed along the cutout (an L-shaped plate), was analyzed as an example. The general solution obtained by Solecki (1996) serves here to determine the frequencies of natural vibration of a L-shaped plate simply supported all around its perimeter. This problem is, however, more complicated than the previous example: to satisfy the boundary conditions an infinite series depending on discontinuous functions must be differentiated. The theoretical development is illustrated by numerical values of the frequencies of the natural vibrations of a square plate with a square cutout. The results are compared with the results obtained using finite elements method.