Vibrations of plates with variable thickness subjected to inplane forces

A BEM-based method, the Analog Equation Method (AEM), is presented as it is employed to solve dynamic problems for plates of variable thickness subjected to inplane forces. The linear buckling problem is also treated using the dynamic criterium. According to AEM the fourth order hyperbolic partial differential equation with variable coefficients is converted to a quasi-static linear problem for plates with constant stiffness subjected to an appropriate fictitious time dependent load under the same boundary conditions. The fictitious load is established using a technique based on BEM. The method is illustrated by applying it to certain example problems. Linear and exponential plate thickness variation laws are considered.