• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.267-288
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• 2012

Free vibration analysis of arbitrary quadrilateral thick plates with internal columns and elastic edge supports is presented by using the powerful pb-2 Ritz method and Reddy's third order shear deformation plate theory. The computing domain of arbitrary quadrilateral planform is mapped onto a standard square form by coordinate transformation. The versatile pb-2 Ritz functions defined by the product of a two-dimensional polynomial and a basic function are taken to be the admissible functions. Substituting these displacement functions into the energy functional and minimizing the total energy by differentiation, leads to a typical eigenvalue problem, which is solved by a standard eigenvalue solver. Stiffness and mass matrices are numerically integrated over the plate by using Gaussian quadrature. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated through several numerical examples by comparison and convergency studies. A lot of numerical results for reasonable natural frequency parameters of quadrilateral plates with different combinations of elastic boundary conditions and column supports at any locations are presented, which can be used as a benchmark for future studies in this area.