Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

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Applied Mathematical Modelling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apm

On the free vibration response of rectangular plates, partially supported

on elastic foundation
Seyedemad Motaghian a, Massood Mofid a,⇑, John E. Akin b
a
Civil Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Rectangular plates on distributed elastic foundations are widely employed in footings and
Received 18 February 2011 raft foundations of variety of structures. In particular, mounted columns and single foot-
Received in revised form 16 November 2011 ings may partially occupy the rectangular plate of any kind.
Accepted 27 November 2011
This study deals with free vibration problem of thin rectangular plates on Winkler and
Available online 3 December 2011
Pasternak elastic foundation model which is distributed over a particular arbitrary area
of the plate. Closed form solutions are developed through solving the governing differential
Keywords:
equations of plates. Moreover, a novel mathematical approach is proposed to find the exact
Rectangular plates
Fourier series
analytical solution of free vibration of plates with mixed or fully-clamped boundary condi-
Partially elastic foundation tions. Results are discussed in detail thorough parametric and verification studies. It was
Clamped boundary concluded that proposed mathematical method can successfully obtain the exact solution
Differential equation to free vibration problems of plates on partial elastic foundations with clamped and/or
simply-supported boundary conditions.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The use of thin plates is pretty common in all fields of structural, civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering. Particular
attention is being paid to dynamic characteristics of plates over elastic foundations whose modeling is based on Winkler
hypothesis [1] in which only the normal interacting forces in the foundation are considered. In this approach the foundation
is treated as if it consisted of many closely spaced linear springs, and the reactions are linearly proportional to the plate
deflection at any point. However, many other researchers proposed different two-parameter foundation models to improve
the behavior of the soil and to achieve a more accurate representation for foundation. For instance, Chen et al. [2] used the
state space technique in combination with the differential quadrature method to solve bending and free vibration problem of
a thick beam resting on a Pasternak elastic foundation. Also, another effort presented by Lam et al. [3] investigated buckling,
bending and vibration problems, using Green’s functions. In their work, Levy-plates resting on different two-parameter foun-
dations such as Pasternak and generalized foundation have broadly been discussed.
The free vibrations of rectangular plates with various boundary conditions have been extensively investigated for many
years. There is a rigorous survey of previous works in this field which has been prepared by Leissa [4] and Warburton [5].
Gorman [6] made use of superposition technique to approximately solve free vibration problems of plates having various
geometries and boundary conditions. He also studied the problem of free vibration analysis of shafts [7]. Most of these stud-
ies dealt with solution to free vibration problem of beams and plates with simply-supported boundary conditions. However,
Hurlebaus et al. [8] extended the Fourier series solution to other more complicated boundary conditions. Siddiqi and Kukreti

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.E. Motaghian), mofi[email protected] (M. Mofid), [email protected] (J.E. Akin).

0307-904X/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apm.2011.11.076
4474 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

[9] analyzed eccentrically stiffened plates with mixed boundary conditions using differential quadrature method. Doyle and
Pavlovic [10] and Eisenberger et al. [11] treated the problem of vibration of a beam, partially supported by Winkler type elas-
tic foundation. Li [12] carried out vibration analysis of rectangular plates with general elastic boundary supports. He em-
ployed Rayleigh–Ritz method to determine the modal characteristics of rectangular plates which is an approximation to
exact solution. Yang and Shen [13] also presented the dynamic response of initially stressed functionally graded rectangular
thin plates with different boundary conditions subjected to partially distributed impulsive lateral loads. Chen et al. [14] uti-
lized boundary element method to solve the problem of free vibration of plates. They studied the spurious solution of char-
acteristic equation for the eigenproblems of circular plates in the continuous and discrete systems. Free vibration study of
laminated plates was also carried out by researchers such as Shi et al. [15], Kabir [16] and Ding et al. [17]. Zhong and Yin [18]
used finite transform method to obtain the natural frequencies of plates with completely free boundary conditions. They
made use of double finite cosine integral transform method and modeled the underlying foundation as Winkler type. Many
other researchers have employed Reissener–Mindlin theory to model the shear deformation behavior of thick plates [19–24].
Shen et al. [25] used the Modal Superposition Approach and State Variable Approach to analyze the dynamic response of
Reissener–Mindlin plates exposed to thermo-mechanical loading and resting on a Pasternak elastic foundation. They re-
garded the temperature field as a linear variation through the thickness of the plate and studied effects of thermal bending
stress, foundation parameters, shape and duration of impulsive load and transverse shear deformation on the Reissener–
Mindlin plates. In another effort, they did extend the previous work, to the case of moderately thick rectangular plates with
completely free boundary conditions resting on a Pasternak elastic foundation [26]. In this work, they used a new set of
admissible functions, which satisfy both geometrical and natural boundary conditions. None of these aforementioned
researchers studied the effect of elastic foundations which partially occupies the plate area. Zhou and Ji [27] however, stud-
ied the free vibration of rectangular plates with continuously distributed spring-mass. They considered two separate cases:
(1) when spring-mass fully occupies the plate and (2) when the distributed spring-mass system partially covers the overhead
plate. Nevertheless, they proposed an approximate solution to the latter case using Ritz–Galerkin method.
This paper proposes an exact solution to free vibration problem of plates having mixed boundary conditions (i.e. simply-
supported, clamped and/or mixed). Governing differential equations of plates having underlying elastic springs which occu-
py an arbitrary area of the plate are solved through the use Fourier series. The solution is subsequently expanded to inclusion
of clamped boundary conditions at one or more edges. A number of validation studies are carried out to verify the accuracy of
the proposed method.

2. Plates on partially elastic Winkler and Pasternak type foundation

General solutions to free vibrations of plates having underlying distributed elastic foundations are addressed through di-
rect solution techniques, in support of governing differential equations of plates. Superposition techniques are also available
to provide the rigorous solutions for plate problems having mixed boundary conditions. The well-known method of separa-
tion of variables are employed in this study to solve the governing differential equations of plates in which elastic founda-
tions is treated as external distributed load and considered as an additional term in the equations. General solution to this
new equation is predicted using suitable trigonometric functions and is expanded to find relevant coefficients which contain
the frequency terms. This solution technique is expanded to the free vibration problems of plates having mixed boundary
conditions in which clamped boundary is characterized using a combination of simply-supported boundary plus an addi-
tional distributed external moment.

2.1. Simply-supported plates

Fig. 1 depicts a rectangular plate having simply-supported boundary conditions partially lays on an elastic foundation.
Two models of elastic foundation have been considered:

Fig. 1. Rectangular plate with part of it supported by elastic foundation.

 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482 4475

1. The Winkler model in which the contact pressure is proportional to the vertical deflection at any point of the plate. The
parameter K1 shown in Fig. 2(a) presents the stiffness of this type of foundation.
2. The Pasternak model. This model improves the Winkler model by introducing shear interactions between the Winkler
springs, and the connecting ends of the springs called shearing layer Fig. 2(b). Second parameter K2 presents the stiffness
of the shearing layer.

When the underlying foundation occupies the entire area of the plate, the governing differential equation of free vibration
could be given as:

@ 2 wðx; y; tÞ
Dr4 wðx; y; tÞ þ k1 wðx; y; tÞ  k2 r2 wðx; y; tÞ þ qh ¼ 0; ð1Þ
@t2
4 4 4 2 2 3
where w(x, y, t) is the dynamic deflection of the plate, r4 ¼ @x
@ @ @ 2 @ @ Eh
4 þ 2 @x2 @y2 þ @y4 ; r ¼ @x2 þ @y2 ; D ¼ 12ð1v r Þ, and h, E, q, v are the
plate thickness, Young modulus, mass per unit volume, Poisson ratio and K1, K2 are the foundation parameters, respectively.
This equation does not apply to the problem of plates whose area is not fully occupied by foundation. However, an alterna-
tive approach would be to consider the elastic foundation as a distributed load over the plate area which is directly depen-
dent upon the plate deflection and solve the problem of simply-supported plate with a distributed load varying with time.
The governing differential equation of this new structure is

@2w
Dr4 w þ qh ¼ f ðx; y; tÞ: ð2Þ
@t 2
The distributed load is denoted by f(x, y, t) which could be decomposed into two separate functions through method of
separation of variables. However, f(x, y, t) is a function of plate deflection. Thus, it is possible to write

f ðx; y; tÞ ¼ k1 wðx; y; tÞ þ k2 r2 wðx; y; tÞ ¼ qðx; yÞGðtÞ: ð3Þ

If w is assumed to be a product of a function of spatial and temporal variables (i.e. w(x, y, t) = F(x, y)G(t)), the method of
separation of variables [28] can fairly be employed to eliminate the time dependant terms. Doing so, Eq. (2) could be written
as

Dr4 F  qhx2 F ¼ qðx; yÞ; ð4Þ

in which x is the natural frequency of vibration. Based on the concept that was discussed earlier, it would be possible to
model springs reactions as distributed loads on the structure. Thus, we can write

qðx; yÞ ¼ k1 Fðx; yÞ þ k2 r2 Fðx; yÞ; ð5Þ

where, are the elastic foundation’s parameters (i.e. foundation stiffness).One could express the solution to Eq. (4) by using
trigonometric functions as
X
1 X
1
mpx npy
Fðx; yÞ ¼ amn sin sin ; ð6Þ
m¼1 n¼1
Lx Ly

where, Lx and Ly are the plate length in directions x and y, respectively. The functions given in Eq. (6), suitably satisfy simply-
supported boundary conditions in both direction x and y of the plate. The Fourier series for q(x, y) could be defined as;
X
1 X
1
mpx npy
qðx; yÞ ¼ bmn sin sin ; ð7Þ
m¼1 n¼1
Lx Ly

in which, bmn is the Fourier coefficient of q(x, y). Substitution of Eqs. (6) and (7) into the Eq. (4) gives;

Fig. 2. Winkler and Pasternak model for elastic foundation; (a) Winkler model, (b) Pasternak model.
4476 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

" ! #
X
1 X
1
m4 p4 2n2 m2 p4 n 4 p4 mpx npy X 1 X 1
mpx npy
amn D þ þ  qhx2 sin sin ¼ bmn sin sin : ð8Þ
m¼1 n¼1 L4x L2x L2y L4y Lx Ly m¼1 n¼1
L x Ly

The relationship between coefficients in Eqs. (6) and (7) (i.e. amn and bmn) can be drawn from Eq. (8). Moreover, bmn is the
Fourier coefficient of q(x, y) which is linearly dependent on F(x, y) (Eq. (5)). Hence,
Z d Z b
4 mpx npy
bmn ¼ ½k1 Fðx; yÞ þ k2 r2 Fðx; yÞ sin sin dxdy; ð9Þ
Lx Ly c a Lx Ly
in which, a, b, c and d are shown in Fig. 1. Using Eqs. (6)–(9), a recurrence formula can be obtained
2   3
2 2 2 2
Z Z k1 þ k2 ðp Lp2 þ q Lp2 Þ bpq sin pLpxx sin qLpyy
d b 6X1 X1 7
bmn ¼
4 6 
x y
 7 sin mpx sin npy dxdy: ð10Þ
Lx Ly 4 p¼1 q¼1 4 4 2 2 4 4 4
5 Lx Ly
c a
D p Lp4 þ 2pL2qL2p þ q Lp4  qhx2
x x y y

In order to represent the procedure by which the frequencies are obtained, it will be necessary to presume that the first
m  n terms of the series in Eq. (10) are expanded. Therefore, there will be one equation with m  n unknowns (i.e.
b11, b21, . . . bm1, b12, b22, . . . bm2, . . ., bmn as unknowns). Naturally, m  n  1 more equations are required for a unique solution
to this set of unknowns. If one develops Eq. (10) for other Fourier coefficients (i.e. b21 up to bmn on the left hand side), after
the integration of the coefficients on the right-hand side, it would be possible to establish a system of m  n equations with
m  n unknowns as follows

b11 ¼ c1;1 b11 þ c1;2 b21 þ    þ c1;mn bmn

b21 ¼ c2;1 b11 þ c2;2 b21 þ    þ c2;mn bmn
.. ð11Þ
.
bmn ¼ cmn;1 b11 þ cmn;2 b21 þ    þ cmn;mn bmn :
In above Eq. (11), c1;1 to cmn;mn are coefficients which contain x. It can be written in a matrix form
½Bmn;1 ¼ ½Cmn;mn ½Bmn;1 ; ð12Þ

where [C] is coefficient matrix obtained after series expansion and subsequent integration. Matrix factorization of Eq. (12)
results in ([C]  [I])[B] = 0 which forms a set of homogeneous equations. In order to avoid the trivial solution (i.e. [B] = 0), the
determinant of ([C]  [I]) should be equal to zero which gives (m  n)th-degree multi-term polynomial having m  n roots
which correspond to m  n frequencies of vibration of the plate structure.

2.2. Clamped support treatment

The procedure described above could be readily applied to clamped end conditions. However, a problem arises when one
wants to use Eq. (6) since it does not satisfy the clamped boundary conditions. In order to remedy the problem, an innovative
approach is proposed to incorporate clamped boundary conditions into governing deferential equation Eq. (4), without fur-
ther need to change the form of series given in Eq. (6).
Fig. 3 illustrates two equivalent structural idealizations in which clamped boundary condition at the top structure was
considered to be a combination of a simply-supported boundary condition plus a distributed moment acting on edge. The
moment can be simulated by a force couple system which has the same magnitude as the end moment. Two distributed

Fig. 3. Idealization of clamped BC as simply-supported BC plus a force couple system in a rectangular plate.
 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482 4477

loads having the magnitude P(y) are shown in Fig. 3 which can generate a distributed moment at the right support. The dis-
tributed loads vary in intensity with y as illustrated in Fig. 3.
The dimension of P(y) is N/m though which cannot be incorporated into the right-hand side of Eq. (4). However, Dirac
Delta function could be employed to relate the imaginary distributed load qC ðyÞ whose dimension is N=m2 to P(y) using
the following transformation
Z Lx Z Lx
qC ðyÞdðx ¼ 0Þdx ¼ qC ðyÞdðx ¼ eÞdx ¼ PðyÞ: ð13Þ
0 0

The distance between the two strips loads shown in Fig. 3 are selected to be sufficiently small (i.e. e) while their magnitude
approaches infinity. That is,
MðyÞ ¼ lim PðyÞ  e: ð14Þ
P!1;e!0

In which, M(y) is shown in Fig. 3. Adding this force couple system to Eq. (4) gives

Dr4 F  qhx2 F ¼ qðx; yÞ þ qC ðyÞdð0Þ  qC ðyÞdðeÞ: ð15Þ

To proceed with the formulation, the Fourier series of added terms in Eq. (15) should be determined. Assuming the Fourier
coefficient for qC(y) to be dn, it is possible to write

Z Lx
2 mpx
emn1 ¼ dn dðx ¼ 0Þ sin dx ¼ 0
Lx 0 Lx
Z Lx
ð16Þ
2 mpx 2 mpe
emn2 ¼ dn dðx ¼ eÞ sin dx ¼ dn sin ;
Lx 0 Lx Lx Lx

where emn1 and emn2 are the Fourier coefficients for qC ðyÞdx ðx ¼ 0Þ and qC(y)d(x = e), respectively. Moreover, given the fact that
e approaches zero, emn2 could more be simplified to dn 2mL2pe : Since dn is the Fourier coefficient of distributed load qC(y), it
x
would be of interest to introduce fn as;
fn ¼ dn e; ð17Þ
which is simply the Fourier coefficient of distributed moment M(y), shown in Fig. 3. Using Eqs. (15) and (16), Eq. (17) can be
written as;
" ! #
X
1 X
1
m4 p4 2n2 m2 p4 n 4 p4 mpx npy
amn D þ þ  qhx2 sin sin
m¼1 n¼1 L4x L2x L2y L4y Lx Ly
X
1 X
1
mpx npy X
1 X 1
2mp mpx npy
¼ bmn sin sin þ fn sin sin ; ð18Þ
m¼1 n¼1
Lx Ly m¼1 n¼1 L2x Lx Ly

which successfully leads into;

bmn  fn 2m p
L2x
amn ¼   : ð19Þ
4 4 2 2 4 4 4
D mL4p þ 2nL2mL2p þ n Lp4  qhx2
x x y y

The recurrence formula containing Fourier coefficients is derived as

2    3
p2 p 2 q2 p2
Z d Z b 6X 1 X 1 k1 þ k 2 ð þ Þ bpq  fq 2pL2p sin pLpxx sin qLpyy
7
7 sin mpx sin npy dxdy:
4 Lx2 L2y x
bmn ¼ 6   ð20Þ
Lx Ly 4 4 4 2 2 4 4 4
5 Lx Ly
c a p p 2p q p q p
p¼1 q¼1 D L4 þ L2 L2 þ L4  qhx 2
x x y y

As it is observed, this formula involves two sets of unknowns namely bpq, fq. One could expand the series and perform sub-
sequent integrations for each m or n to generate one equation with (m  n + n) unknowns. That is, using Eq. (20), m  n equa-
tions having (m  n + n) unknowns can be generated. As a result, n additional equations are required to acquire a unique
solution for this problem. In order to find the additional equations, one can take the first derivative of Eq. (6) with respect
to x and set it equal to zero knowing the fact that clamped boundary conditions necessitates the slope of deflection of the
plate to be zero at the clamped edge. Doing so gives
 X
1 X
1 
@Fðx; yÞ mp mpx npy
¼ a cos sin ¼ 0: ð21Þ
@x x¼0 m¼1 n¼1 Ly x¼0
mn
Lx Lx
4478 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

Expanding the first series in Eq. (21) leads to

! ! ! !
X
1
mp py X1
mp 2py X1
mp 3py X1
mp npy
am1 sin þ am2 sin þ am3 sin þ  þ amn sin ¼ 0: ð22Þ
m¼1
Lx Ly m¼1
Lx Ly m¼1
L x Ly m¼1
Lx Ly

One possible solution to this polynomial is obtained if all the coefficients in parentheses are equal to zero. That is,
X
1
mp X 1
mp X 1
mp X1
mp
am1 ¼ am2 ¼ am3 ¼  ¼ amn ¼ 0: ð23Þ
m¼1
Lx m¼1
Lx m¼1
Lx m¼1
Lx
Substituting the first term in Eq. (23) into (19) gives;
0 1
X
1 bm1  f1 2Lp2
@ 4 4 2 4 4
x A mp ¼ 0; ð24Þ
m¼1 DðmL4p þ 2m p þ p Þ  qhx2
L2 L2 L4y
Lx
x x y

which is the first, out of n required equations, to solve the simultaneous equations in Eq. (20). The same procedure could be
applied to all other terms in Eq. (23) to reach the entire set of required equations. Consequently, the set of simultaneous
equations in Eq. (20) would have a unique solution from which frequencies of vibrations can be obtained following the same
technique described in Section 2.1.
The solution technique described herein is specialized for a plate with one clamped edge. However, this solution can be
readily expanded to two or more clamped edges using Eqs. (15) and (21). That is, two more terms are added to the right-hand
side of Eq. (15) in case of two opposite clamped edges. As a consequence, an additional double Fourier series having the coef-
ficient, say gn, is added to Eq. (18) which incorporates n extra unknowns into recurrence formula Eq. (20). By using Eq. (21)
however, it is possible to write another boundary condition equation at the clamped edge and generate required equations
for the unknowns.

3. Parametric studies

The analytical method proposed in this study can be verified by other previously provided methods in the literature. In
order to validate the developed procedure, the work completed by Yang and Shen [13] and Lam et al. [3] were selected and
compared with proposed technique, presented in this study. The comparisons are made for free vibration of a square plate
with 1 m side lengths and 1 cm thickness and different boundary conditions. Fig. 4 illustrates six combinations of boundary
conditions which are going to be studied in these investigations. The letters denote the support type along the edges (S for
simply-supported and C for clamped).The mass per unit area, Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio are 7850 kg/m3, 2  1011N/
m2 and 0.3, respectively. Using the results of Yang and Shen [13] and Lam et al. [3], validity of the work conveyed in this
study can successfully get acquired. qffiffiffiffi
In Table 1, the first six dimensionless frequency parameters, x  ¼ xL2x qDh, for CSCS, CCCS and CCCC square plates without
foundation are shown and compared with the solution presented by Yang and Shen [13]. M and N shown in this table are the
first selected terms of the truncated Fourier series of Eq. (6) which are corresponding to m = 1, 2, . . ., M and n = 1, 2, 3, . . ., N. The
results are determined with different amounts of M and N (that is,M = N = 10, 15, 20, 25, 30). As can be seen from Table 1, with
increasing M and N, The results converge to those obtained by Yang and Shen [13].
Table 2, gives a comparison between the first natural frequencies provided by the proposed method and canonical exact
solution presented by Lam et al. [3]. The problem studied by Lam et al. [3] was confined to a Levy-plate fully supported on
two-parameter elastic foundation with different boundary conditions. Three different boundary conditions are selected for
this verification namely CSCS, CSSS and SSSS. Dimensionless forms of the stiffness and natural frequency of the plate have
been employed in this table as follows;
rffiffiffiffiffiffi
 ¼ xL2x
qh
x ; ð25Þ
D

Fig. 4. Six different combinations of BCs for a rectangular plate.

 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482 4479

Table 1
Comparison of the first six dimensionless frequency parameters with different number of selected terms of the truncated Fourier series.

Type of boundary condition Mode sequence M = N = 10 M = N = 15 M = N = 20 M = N = 25 M = N = 30 Yang and Shen [13]

CSCS 1 31.0712 30.1792 29.9096 29.6719 29.5695 28.9460
2 56.6421 55.8163 55.5734 55.3624 55.2725 54.7410
3 75.0469 73.2554 71.9967 71.9967 71.0660 69.3303
4 100.3653 98.5147 97.2320 96.7574 96.2962 94.6120
5 103.9569 103.1776 102.9536 102.7616 102.6807 102.1651
6 142.7383 136.5571 134.8219 133.3385 132.7130 129.0791
CCCS 1 34.0162 33.1751 32.9218 32.6989 32.6031 31.8237
2 65.8641 65.1127 64.8927 64.7019 64.6208 63.3391
3 76.9084 75.1369 73.8935 73.2532 72.9751 71.0829
4 107.1447 105.3524 104.1130 103.4825 103.2106 100.8310
5 119.7623 119.0432 118.8370 118.6606 118.5864 116.2164
6 144.1020 137.9626 136.2344 134.7574 134.1346 130.3377
CCCC 1 37.1960 37.1960 37.1960 37.1958 37.1958 35.9879
2 76.0092 76.0092 76.0092 76.0088 76.0088 73.4053
3 76.1098 76.1098 76.1097 76.1097 76.1097 73.4172
4 112.1912 112.1905 112.1905 112.1905 112.1905 108.2728
5 136.2238 136.2238 136.2238 136.2238 136.2236 131.1693
6 136.8537 136.8514 136.8514 136.8514 136.8514 132.0165

Table 2
Comparison of the first natural frequencies with various foundation stiffnesses.

Type of boundary condition k1 k2 M=N=5 M = N = 10 M = N = 15 M = N = 20 Lam et al. [3]

SSSS 0 0 19.74 19.74 19.74 19.74 19.74

102 48.62 48.62 48.62 48.62 48.62
103 141.87 141.87 141.87 141.87 141.92
102 0 22.13 22.13 22.13 22.13 22.13
102 49.63 49.63 49.63 49.63 49.63
103 142.20 142.20 142.20 142.20 142.20
103 0 37.28 37.28 37.28 37.28 37.28
102 58.00 58.00 58.00 58.00 58.00
103 145.36 145.36 145.36 145.36 145.43
CSCS 0 0 33.02 31.07 30.18 29.91 28.95
102 59.56 57.11 56.04 55.73 54.68
103 159.14 152.68 149.88 149.09 146.73
102 0 34.50 32.64 31.79 31.54 30.63
102 60.39 57.98 56.93 56.62 55.59
103 159.45 153.00 150.21 149.43 147.13
103 0 45.72 44.33 43.71 43.53 42.87
102 67.43 65.28 64.35 64.08 63.17
103 162.25 155.92 153.18 152.41 150.12
CSSS 0 0 25.09 24.31 24.07 23.96 23.65
102 53.33 52.19 51.86 51.71 51.32
103 150.09 146.67 145.69 145.25 144.24
102 0 27.01 26.28 26.07 25.96 25.67
102 54.25 53.14 52.82 52.67 52.29
103 150.42 147.01 146.03 145.59 144.61
103 0 40.37 39.88 39.74 39.67 39.49
102 61.99 61.02 60.75 60.62 60.28
103 153.38 150.03 149.07 148.65 147.62

4
 ¼ k1 Lx
k 1
D
2
 2 ¼ 2 Lx
k
k
D
which k1 and k2 are the foundation parameters of the Pasternak model.
The two-parameter elastic foundation occupies the entire area of the plate whose edges are either clamped or simply-
supported, as given in Table 2. Excellent agreements are achieved between the frequencies of SSSS plate and those from
Lam et al. [3]. However, once clamped boundary conditions are included in the formulation, approximation appears in
the results depending on the number of terms of the series in Eq. (6) which is considered (M and N). As this number in-
creases, the agreement of the results also gets more improvement.
4480 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

Fig. 5. Rectangular plate partially supported by strip elastic foundation.

The problems discussed above dealt with a plate without any foundation or fully supported on elastic foundation. In order
to verify the ability of the proposed method to account for partial spring distribution, two case studies are investigated. First,
a rectangular plate with 2  1 side lengths (2 m length and 1 m width) part of which is supported by a Winkler elastic foun-
dation, as shown in Fig. 5, is considered. Other properties of the plate are the same as those of the problem studied above.
 ¼ 10) to considerably high (i.e. rigid com-
The stiffness of the strip Winkler elastic foundation varies between fairly low (i.e. k
paring to plate stiffness). Moreover, six different boundary condition as illustrated in Fig. 4 were examined to evaluate the
efficiency of the present method in formulating the combination of boundary conditions. Multipurpose Finite Element pro-
gram OpenSees [29] was utilized to verify the results. Sufficient number of shell elements was assigned to the model to ob-
tain natural frequencies as accurately as possible. Table 3 shows the comparison between two sets of data obtained from
present formulation and finite element method. These results were calculated using 25  25 terms of series given in Eq.
(6), that is, 25 terms for the first series and 25 for the second. It is observed the maximum discrepancy between the two
result sets is almost 5% which shows the ability of the present method to obtain natural frequencies of rectangular plates,
part of which is occupied by elastic foundation.
Most discrepancies can be found once the stiffness of the foundation approaches infinity. As the stiffness of the founda-
tion increases, numerical solution may introduce inaccuracy in results. Nevertheless, this case might be of interest to
researchers who investigate the interaction between rigid footage and thin slabs. Fig. 6 shows the first four mode shapes
of SSSS plate with rigid foundation. As mentioned earlier, more accuracy can be reached once the number of the terms of
2
qffiffiffiffi
series in Eq. (6) increases. In Table 3 x ¼ x pLx2 qDh.

Table 3
Comparison of the first five natural frequencies, with various foundation stiffnesses.


k x


SSSS CSSS CCSS CSCS CCCS CCCC

Present FE Present FE Present FE Present FE Present FE Present FE
study study study study study study
10 5.003 5.002 5.279 5.237 7.409 7.199 5.658 5.547 7.662 7.433 10.295 9.954
8.001 7.995 8.880 8.721 10.517 10.202 9.982 9.575 11.494 10.952 13.348 12.880
13.000 12.987 14.605 14.254 15.869 15.367 16.450 15.661 17.274 16.691 18.782 18.108
17.000 16.989 17.158 17.108 21.844 21.194 17.352 17.246 21.791 21.309 26.226 25.607
20.000 19.973 20.595 20.409 23.429 22.651 21.331 20.909 25.348 24.488 29.853 29.097
103 5.310 5.373 5.604 5.625 7.588 7.429 5.958 5.910 7.837 7.653 10.481 10.183
8.130 8.158 9.013 8.889 10.607 10.321 10.109 9.734 11.584 11.067 13.451 13.010
13.080 13.086 14.670 14.338 15.920 15.435 16.521 15.750 17.932 16.764 18.851 18.193
17.058 17.061 17.221 17.183 21.927 21.287 17.413 17.321 21.873 21.401 26.675 25.667
20.064 20.003 20.629 20.454 23.468 22.703 21.366 20.954 25.397 24.560 29.886 29.160
105 10.370 10.950 12.690 13.075 13.009 13.429 12.707 13.080 13.129 13.440 16.093 16.296
14.285 15.154 14.644 15.411 14.885 15.586 15.461 15.952 15.854 16.205 20.862 20.912
17.239 17.986 18.154 18.673 18.911 19.282 19.215 19.925 21.131 20.700 24.819 24.115
21.280 21.796 22.501 22.749 25.120 24.888 23.347 23.760 27.089 26.319 30.331 29.378
23.479 24.516 25.069 25.917 28.246 28.049 27.162 27.916 29.806 29.014 32.187 31.557
1 13.813 14.525 17.925 18.298 17.997 18.561 17.926 18.298 18.153 18.561 21.299 21.379
21.069 22.251 21.628 22.893 21.895 23.016 22.103 23.181 22.971 23.376 31.250 31.835
22.748 23.835 24.380 25.172 25.0744 26.025 25.235 25.712 26.359 26.854 33.144 33.516
26.162 27.286 27.702 28.358 30.003 29.856 29.148 29.481 30.993 30.915 36.198 36.980
31.308 32.525 33.265 33.962 34.529 34.896 35.771 35.820 36.773 36.642 42.179 42.141
 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482 4481

Fig. 6. First four modes of vibrations of rectangular plate with rigid partial elastic foundation.

Fig. 7. Comparison between the results of present study and those of the FE method; (a) CCCC plate – Moving along the splitting line, (b) CCCC plate –
Moving along the diagonal, (c) CCSS plate – Moving along the splitting line, (d) CCSS plate – Moving along the diagonal.

The second case study deals with a moving 1=2  1=2 m2 square footage which is modeled by Winkler foundation and
traverses along the plate splitting line parallel to the greater sides and along the diagonal with a constant stiffness
 ¼ 104 ). Fig. 7 shows two assumed routes for a rectangular plate studied above with two different boundary conditions
(k
4482 S.E. Motaghian et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 36 (2012) 4473–4482

2
qffiffiffiffi
 ¼ x pLx2 qh
namely CCCC and CCSS. Dimensionless natural frequencies, x D
, have been obtained and compared with the results
of model analyzed through the finite elements program. Three to four percent discrepancy can be found in Fig. 7 which con-
firms the ability of the proposed solution to account for partial foundation coverage throughout the plate.

4. Conclusions

An analytical solution to the free vibration problem of rectangular plates on partial elastic foundation was presented in
this study. A simple and robust method for incorporating different boundary conditions into the governing differential equa-
tion of vibration of such structures was also provided. Besides, the results were successfully verified against available ana-
lytical, experimental and/or numerical techniques, in literature. It was shown that by superposition of appropriate
trigonometric functions, not only underlying springs can be incorporated as imposing loads into governing differential equa-
tions, but also clamped boundary conditions as an external applied force couple can also be imparted into the solution of
differential equation.
Based on the parametric studies provided in this study, it could be stated that the proposed method successfully calculate
natural frequencies of rectangular, partially on two-parameter elastic foundation. An application of the problem studied
herein can be utilized for mounted columns and single footings that partially occupy thin rectangular slabs.
It should be noted that the problems of forced vibration of plates and vibration of Reissener–Mindlin plates can also be
addressed using the same techniques discussed in this paper which is going to be documented in later research. Moreover,
we believe that the presented method in this investigation can successfully help engineers, as well as the scientist, in real
plate design conditions.

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