In-plane vibration analysis of plates in curvilinear domains by a differential quadrature hierarchical finite element method

Free in-plane vibration analysis of plates is carried out by a differential quadrature hierarchical finite element method (DQHFEM). The NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) patches of geometries were first transformed into differential quadrature hierarchical (DQH) patches, and then the elastic field was discretized by the same DQH basis. The DQHFEM solved the compatibility problem caused by different parametrization of neighbouring patches of isogeometric analysis using NURBS. And mesh refinement in DQHFEM does not propagate from patch to patch. The DQHFEM matrices also have the embedding property as the hierarchical finite element method (HFEM). In-plane vibration analyses of plates of several planforms showed that the DQHFEM is similar as the fixed interface mode synthesis method that can analyse a structure using a few nodes on the boundary of substructure elements and only several clamped modes inside each substructure element, but the DQHFEM does not need modal analysis and is of high accuracy. The accuracy and convergence of the DQHFEM were validated through comparison with exact and approximate results in literatures and computed by the authors.