ANALYTIC SOLUTION TO A SIMPLY SUPPORTED ELASTIC RECTANGULAR PLATE WITH ADDITIONAL INTERNAL SUPPORT

Abstract

 The mechanics of beams, shells and plates are of utmost importance in structural engineering, hence the need to study problems on plates and its solutions as a case study. The problem of a laterally loaded rectangular plate, simply supported along all its edges with an additional support along a line segment in the internal portion of the plate is considered. The problem is further extended by the introduction of an additional support along part of its center line,the transverse load distribution is varied giving various results according to the loading conditions. This give rise to an additional constraint and the resulting solution led to the determination of the deflection in the form of superposition integrals in terms of hyperbolic and sinusoidal functions.