Static analysis of rectangular thick plates resting on two-parameter elastic boundary strips

In this paper, the Generalized Differential Quadrature (GDQ) method is used to obtain bending solution of moderately thick rectangular plates. The plate is resting on two-parameter elastic (Pasternak) foundation or strips with a finite width. Various combinations of clamped, simply supported and free boundary conditions are considered. According to the first-order shear deformation theory, the governing equations of the problem consist of three second-order partial differential equations (PDEs) in terms of displacement and rotations of the plate. The governing equations and solution domain is discretized based on the GDQ method. It is demonstrated that the method converges rapidly while providing accurate results with relatively small number of grid points. Accuracy of the results is examined using available data in the literature for Pasternak foundation. Furthermore, due to lack of data for Pasternak strips, all predictions are verified by finite element analysis which can be used as benchmark in future studies.