ANALYSIS OF FREE VIBRATION OF THIN PLATES BY THE ELEMENT-FREE METHOD

The element-free method for the vibration of simply supported and fixed end thin plates is presented in this paper. The shape function ofthe element-free method is introduced. The mass and stiffmatrices for the free vibration of plates are derived by using the variationalprinciple. Numerical examples are given and compared with othermethods. It shows that this method has a number of advantages.