Free vibration of isosceles triangular mindlin plates

The free flexural vibration of thick isosceles triangular plates based on the Mindlin shear deformation theory is investigated. The pb-2 Rayleigh-Ritz method, proposed earlier by the authors, is employed for solution. New sets of vibration frequency parameters for isosceles triangular Mindlin plates with various apex angles, thickness-to-width ratios and different combinations of free, simply supported and clamped edges are presented. These results are valuable to designers and may serve as the benchmark values for future numerical techniques and software packages in thick plate analyses. Since no results are available to date for such thick triangular plates, comparisons of results can only be made in the special case of small thickness-to-width ratios with existing thin plate results. In all cases, they are found to be in very close agreement. The influences of shear deformation and rotatory inertia on the frequency parameters are examined. © 1993.