Differential quadrature element method: a new approach for free vibration analysis of polar Mindlin plates having discontinuities

This paper presents the numerical development of the differential quadratur e element method (DQEM) for free vibration analysis of the shear deformable plates in polar coordinates. This is an improvement on the global differen tial quadrature method (DQM). The formulations of the DQEM for polar plate vibration element are derived in detail. The convergence characteristics of the DQEM for solving the free vibration of polar plates are carefully exam ined. The reliability and flexibility of the DQEM are illustrated by solvin g several selected example polar plates having discontinuities which are no t solvable directly by the DQM. The accuracy of the DQEM is evaluated and v erified by comparing the present numerical results with the existing exact or approximate solutions, or the FEM solutions computed using the software package ANSYS (Version 5.3). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights rese rved.