Accurate in-plane free vibration analysis of rectangular orthotropic plates

Accurate analytical type solutions are obtained for the free in-plane vibration eigenvalues and mode shapes of fully clamped orthotropic rectangular plates. Appropriate governing differential equations for orthotropic plates are developed in dimensionless form and employed. Solutions are obtained by the method of superposition. It will be apparent that the solution procedure can be readily extended to analyze plates with other types of classical boundary conditions. The work reported is a natural extension of earlier work related to the in-plane vibration of isotropic plates. This appears to be the first analytical type study related to orthotropic plate in-plane vibration. It is expected that results tabulated here will form a valuable reference against which the results of other researchers may be compared. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.