Dynamic response of rectangular prestressed membrane subjected to uniform impact load

This paper investigated the dynamic response of rectangular prestressed membrane subjected to uniform impact load theoretically and experimentally. The dynamic response proceeds in two stages, namely, forced vibration and free vibration. Firstly, the maximal displacement for forced vibration is obtained by means of the principle of minimum potential energy based on the theoretical model proposed. Then, equations of motion for the transverse free vibration are derived based on thin-plate theory, and simplified by using Galerkin method. Consequently, the analytic solutions of dynamic parameters, such as frequency, displacement, amplitude, velocity, and acceleration, for free vibration are obtained by means of the multiple-scale perturbation method. In order to identify the reliability of theoretical model, the corresponding experimental study is carried out based on the developed experimental system. Furthermore, the effects of pretension force and load on the dynamic response of membrane are discussed, respectively. The present work provides a theoretical model to calculate the dynamic response of prestressed membrane subjected to uniform impact load, and a set of experimental system to study this problem.