A SIMPLIFIED ANALYSIS OF CIRCULAR CELLULAR PLATES

This paper presents a general analytical method for circular cellular plates with arbitrarily positioned large voids, in which the bending a nd the transverse shear deformations along with the frame deformation are considered. The frame deformation is defined as the flexural defor mation of the frame, composed of the top and bottom platelets and of p artitions in the cellular plate. The discontinuous variation of the be nding and transverse shear stiffnesses due to the voids is expressed c ontinuously by the use of a specific function, defined to exist contin uously in a prescribed region. The bending stiffness is given by the a ctual bending stiffness at each point. The transverse shear stiffness per each void is given by an equivalent transverse shear stiffness, wh ich is calculated from the stiffness of a frame and partitions like sh ear wall surrounding each void, and depends on the shape of each void. The governing equations are formulated by translating a theory for re ctangular cellular plates into circular cellular plates. Static and dy namic solutions are obtained by the Galerkin method. The approximate s olution for dynamic plates is proposed. The numerical results obtained from the proposed theory for simply-supported and clamped circular ce llular plates show good agreement with results obtained from the finit e element method. The theory proposed here includes the Mindlin and Re issner theories. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.