EXACT-SOLUTIONS FOR AXISYMMETRICAL BENDING OF CONTINUOUS ANNULAR PLATES

This paper is concerned with obtaining exact solutions for the axisymm etric bending problem of elastic annular plates with internal concentr ic supports. The standard stiffness method of analysis is employed to solve the problems. The solutions can be obtained either numerically o r in closed-form. Both thin and thick plates can be handled. For the t hick plate analysis, the Mindlin plate theory has been adopted to cate r for the effect of transverse shear deformation. Relationships betwee n Kirchhoff and Mindlin plate solutions have been used to derive the s tiffness matrix of thick plates. Present solutions are compared with p ublished results for some representative annular plate bending problem s to demonstrate their validity. Exact solutions for displacement, she ar force and bending moment for an annular plate with an internal conc entric support are presented. Numerical results showing the influence of transverse shear deformation on edge displacement under a concentri c ring load applied at the free inner edge of a free/continuous suppor t/fixed plate are also presented. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.