Similarity of stiffness and mass matrices in plate bending elements

Abstract

SUMMARYIt has been noticed that the stiffness and mass matrices of a triangular plate bending element can be generated from the known stiffness and mass matrices of a similar triangular element making use of scaling matrices. This could be used to advantage in solving problems involving large degrees of freedom if the structure could be discretized into similar triangles. The idea is extended to study the free vibration of a square plate clamped on all edges with a square central cutout.