Natural frequencies of thin, rectangular plates with holes or orthotropic “patches” carrying an elastically mounted mass

The approximate solution for the title problem is obtained in the case of simply supported and clamped rectangular plates made of isotropic or orthotropic materials. A variational approach (the well known Rayleigh–Ritz method) is used, where the displacement amplitude is expressed in terms of beam functions. This means that each coordinate function satisfies identically all the boundary conditions at the outer edge of the plate. Free vibration analysis has been performed on various different cases; solid isotropic and orthotropic plates, orthotropic plates with a hole and isotropic plates with an orthotropic inclusion or ‘‘patch’’, carrying an elastically mounted concentrated mass. It is important to point out that the case of an orthotropic patch is interesting from a technological viewpoint since it constitutes a model of a repair implemented on the virgin structural element when it has suffered damage. This approach has been implemented by the aeronautical industry in some instances. The obtained results are in very good agreement with those of particular cases of simply supported plates available in the literature.