Free vibration of cross-shaped, I-shaped and L-shaped plates clamped at all edges

This paper presents a new series-type method for solving the eigenvalue problems of irregularly shaped plates clamped at all edges. An irregularly shaped plate is formed on a simply supported rectangular plate by rigidly fixing several segments. With the reaction forces and moments acting on all edges of an actual plate of irregular shape regarded as unknown harmonic loads, the stationary response of the plate to these loads is expressed by the use of the Green function. The force and moment distributions along the edges are expanded into Fourier series with unknown coefficients, and the homogeneous equations for the coefficients are derived by restraint conditions on the edges. The natural frequencies and the mode shapes of the actual plate are determined by calculating the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the equations. The method is applied to a cross-shaped, an I-shaped and an L-shaped plate clamped at all edges, the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of the plates are calculated numerically and the effect of the shape is discussed.