Bending analysis of thin annular sector plates using extended Kantorovich method

Highly accurate approximate closed-form solution is presented for bending of thin sector plates with clamped edges subjected to uniform and non-uniform loading using the extended Kantorovich method (EKM). Successive application of EKM converts the governing equation which is a forth-order partial differential equation (PDE) to two separate ordinary differential equations (ODE) in terms of r and theta. The obtained ODE systems are then solved iteratively with very fast convergence. In every iteration, exact closed-form solutions are obtained for both ODE systems. It is shown that the method provides sufficiently accurate results not only for deflections but also for stress components. Comparison of the deflection and stresses at various points of the plate shows very good agreement with results of other analytical and numerical analyses. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.