Application of the spline element method to analyze vibration of skew mindlin plates with varying thickness in one direction

This paper presents an application of the spline element method based on th e Mindlin plate theory to analyze the vibration of thick skew plates with v arying thickness in the longitudinal direction. To demonstrate the converge nce and accuracy of the present method, several examples are solved, and re sults are compared with those obtained by other numerical methods. Good acc uracy is obtained. Frequencies of skew Mindlin plates with varying cross-se ctions having arbitrary boundary conditions are analyzed for different thic kness ratios, aspect ratios, ratios of the width to thickness and skew angl es. (C) 2001 Academic Press.