In-plane vibrations of a rectangular plate: Plane wave expansion modelling and experiment

• The in-plane vibrations of a rectangular plate with free ends are considered.
• They are measured with electromagnetic acoustic transducers and a network analyzer.
• A plane wave expansion was applied to the classical theory of in-plane vibrations.
• The difference between theoretical and experimental spectra is less than 1.4 percent.
• The theoretical normal-mode wave amplitudes agree with the experimental results.

Theoretical and experimental results for in-plane vibrations of a uniform rectangular plate with free boundary conditions are obtained. The experimental setup uses electromagnetic-acoustic transducers and a vector network analyzer. The theoretical calculations were obtained using the plane wave expansion method applied to the in-plane thin plate vibration theory. The agreement between theory and experiment is excellent for the lower 95 modes covering a very wide frequency range from DC to 20 kHz. Some measured normal-mode wave amplitudes were compared with the theoretical predictions; very good agreement was observed. The excellent agreement of the classical theory of in-plane vibrations confirms its reliability up to very high frequencies

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide