Free and forced vibration analysis of moderately thick orthotropic plates in thermal environment and resting on elastic supports

This paper investigates the free and forced vibration of moderately thick orthotropic plates under thermal environment and resting on elastic supports. Three kinds of elastic supports, namely non-homogeneous elastic foundations, point elastic supports and line elastic supports, are considered in the present study. The first-order shear deformation theory is employed to formulate the strain and kinetic energy functions of the structures, and then the stiffness and mass matrices can be obtained by applying the Hamilton's principle. The modified Fourier method is adopted to solve the dynamic problems of moderately thick orthotropic plates with different combinations of temperature variations, elastic supports and boundary conditions. The accuracy and reliability of the proposed formulation are validated by comparing the obtained results with the finite element method results. Finally, the effects of some key parameters including temperature variation and stiffness values of the elastic supports on the modal and dynamic characteristics of the plates are analyzed in detail. In views of the versatility of the developed method, it offers an efficient tool for the structural analysis of moderately thick orthotropic plates under thermal environment and resting on elastic supports.