The forced vibration of a thin plate floating on an infinite liquid

In this paper a solution is presented for the harmonically forced vibration of an arbitrary thin plate floating on the surface of an infinite liquid. The full linear potential problem for the liquid is solved by the use of the appropriate Green's function. A variational equation which the plate-liquid system must satisfy is derived and a solution by the Rayleigh-Ritz method is presented. Examples of possible calculations are given for a square and a rectangular plate. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.