Dynamic Shear Response of Rectangular Plates with Initial Imperfections

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the elastic response of a simply supported, imperfect, rectangular plate subjected to an in-plane supercritical shear force, suddenly applied at one of the edges in the form of a square pulse. The influence of the initial plate irregularities on the overall response during both loading and postloading period is investigated. The averaged in-plane inertia forces are taken into account. The analysis is an extension of the studies of the response to in-plane normal forces of plates of infinite width and finite length given in [1], and of a finite plate given in [2]. The results indicate that the frequency spectra of free vibrations during the post-loading regime are controlled by the initial irregularities distribution, plate geometry and the load levels.