Some studies on the free vibration of cantilever plates with uniform and non-uniform thickness

A finite element analysis of the free vibration of cantilever plates with uniform and nonuniform thicknesses has been performed. The present study employs a rectangular element with 16 degrees of freedom, and makes use of the stiffness matrix and consistent mass matrix of Dawe (1984) and Yang (1986). Using a new modified 6-node element, it is shown that only one element in the chordwise direction is necessary in order to achieve sufficient accuracy for the first 10 eigenvalues. (R.R.)