10.7 Solutions to
simple problems involving membranes, plates and shells
In this section, we derive solutions
to several initial and boundary value problems for plates and shells to
illustrate applications of the general theories derived in the preceding
sections.
10.7.1 Thin circular plate bent by pressure applied to one face
A thin circular plate, with radius R and thickness h is made from a linear elastic solid with Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio , as shown in the figure. It is
subjected to a pressure acting perpendicular to the plate, and is simply
supported at its edge. The solution can
be derived using the simplified version of plate theory described in Section
10.6.1. Although the plate is circular,
the problem can be solved by expressing all vector and tensor quantities as
components in a Cartesian basis shown in the figure.
The deflection of the plate is given
by
where .The internal force and moment in the
plate are
Derivation:
1. The transverse deflection must
satisfy the static equilibrium equation
2. The solution must be axially
symmetric, so that where .
Substituting this expression into the equilibrium equation, and using , reduces the governing equation to
3. This equation can be integrated
repeatedly to give
where A,B,C,D are constants of integration.
4. The curvature is related to w by
5. Substituting this result into the
curvature-moment equations gives the following equation for the internal moment
distribution
6. The displacement and curvature of the
plate must be finite at r=0, which is
only possible if A=B=0 To see this,
note that the Blog(r) term in the formula for w is inifite at r=0; similarly, substituting the expression for w into the curvature formula produces a
term involving Alog(r) which is also infinite at r=0. The
remaining constants must be determined from the boundary conditions at the edge
of the plate. For a simply supported
plate, the boundary conditions are and on r=R,
where is a unit vector normal to the edge of the
plate. This yields two equations that
can be solved for C and D.
Substituting the results back into the formulas in (3) and (5) then
gives the solution.
10.7.2 Vibration modes and natural frequencies for a circular membrane
A thin circular membrane with
thickness h, radius R and mass density is subjected to a uniform radial force per
unit length acting
on its edge, as shown in the figure Our
goal is to calculate the mode shapes and natural frequencies of vibration of
the membrane (the physical significance of natural frequencies and mode shapes
for a continuous system are described in more detail in Section 10.4.1)
The natural frequencies of vibration
and mode shapes are identified by two integers (m,n) that characterize the mode shape. The index m=1,2,3…
corresponds to the number of circumferential lines (with r=constant) on the membrane that have zero displacement, while n=0,1,2… corresponds to the number of diametral
lines (with constant) that have zero displacement.
The natural frequencies of vibration are
given by the solutions to the equation ,
where is a Bessel function of the first kind of
order n (This sounds scary, but symbolic manipulation
programs have predefined functions that compute roots of Bessel
functions). A few zeros for Bessel
functions of order n=0,1,2 are listed
in Table 10.3.
The first few natural frequencies are
, , and so on.
The mode shapes are
Contour plots of the displacements for the first few
vibration modes are shown in the figure.
Derivation:
1. The equation that governs transverse
motion of a membrane under equibiaxial tension was derived in Section 10.6.5 as
2. The general solution to this equation
(which can be found by separation of variables, or if you are lazy, using a
symbolic manipulation program) is
where , A,
B, n, are arbitrary constants, and are Bessel functions of the first and second
kinds, with order n, respectively.
3. The solution must satisfy , which is only possible if n is an integer.
4. The Bessel function of the second
kind is infinite at r=0, so B=0.
5. The transverse displacement must
satisfy the boundary condition on the edge of the membrane, which leads to the
condition .
10.7.3 Estimate for the fundamental frequency of vibration of a simply
supported rectangular flat plate
The figure shows an initially flat
plate, which lies in the plane and is free of external force.
The plate has Young’s modulus , mass density , and thickness h. Its edges are simply
supported. We wish to calculate the
lowest natural frequency of vibration for the plate.
The exact natural frequencies and
modes of vibration for a rectangular plate are best calculated using a
numerical method (e.g. finite elements).
However, it is very straightforward to estimate the lowest natural
frequency of vibration using the Rayleigh-Ritz method described in Section 5.9.
The Rayleigh-Ritz method proceeds as
follows:
1. Select a suitable estimate for the
lowest frequency mode of vibration. which must satisfy all displacement boundary
conditions. For present purposes, the
following mode shape is reasonable
where C is a parameter that can be adjusted to obtain the best estimate
for the natural frequency. More terms
could be added to obtain a more accurate solution.
2. Calculate the kinetic energy measures
3.
The frequency is estimated as - we therefore need to choose C to minimize .
Although an exact formula can be calculated for the resulting upper
bound to the natural frequency, the expression is very long, and is best
displayed graphically. The figure shows
the variation of normalized natural frequency as a function of the aspect ratio
of the plate .
As a guide to the accuracy of the solution, an exact solution can be
calculated for the natural frequency in the limit (in this limit the plate is a beam), following
the procedure described in Section 10.4.1.
The result is .
It is clear that the Rayleigh-Ritz method gives an excellent estimate of
the natural frequency in this limit.
10.7.4 Bending induced by inelastic strain in a thin film on a substrate
The figure illustrates the problem to be solved. A thin film, with Young’s modulus , Poisson’s ratio and thickness is deposited onto the surface of an initially
flat, circular wafer, which has Young’s modulus , Poisson’s ratio , radius , and thickness .
An inelastic strain is introduced into the film by some external process,
which generates stresses in the film, and also causes the substrate to bend. Provided the inelastic strain is not too
large, the plate adopts a state of uniform curvature (its deformed shape can be visualized as a
spherical cap, with large radius of curvature ). Our goal is to relate the curvature
to the inelastic strain , and to calculate the stress in the
film. The results are important because stresses
in thin films are often determined by measuring the curvature of the substrate.
The inelastic strain may be caused by
a number of different processes, including
- A
mismatch in thermal expansion between the film and the substrate. In this case the inelastic strain is
related to the thermal expansion coefficients , of the film and substrate and the
temperature T by , where is the temperature at which the system is
stress free (many films are approximately free of stress at deposition
temperature)
- The
film may grow epitaxially on the substrate, so that the spacing between
atoms in the film is forced to match that of the substrate. In this case the inelastic strain can be
calculated as follows. Suppose
that, in their stress free states, the film and substrate have lattice
spacing and , respectively. Then .
- Mismatch
strain may develop in the film as a result of the deposition process.
- Mismatch
strain may be developed as a result of interdiffusion and possibly
chemical reactions between the film and substrate.
Solution: The inelastic
strain in the film is related to the curvature of the substrate by
where , and .
Note that with the sign convention adopted here, the substrate has a
positive curvature if the film is on the convex side of the bent plate.
The stress in the film is related to the curvature by
where is the distance above the mid-plane of the
film.
In most practical situations the
thickness of the substrate greatly exceeds the thickness of the film, in which
case these results can be approximated by
These are known as the Stoney equations.
Derivation: It is simplest to derive these
results by using the general equations of shell theory to write down the
potential energy of the bent plate, and then calculating the values of
mid-plane strain and curvature that minimize the potential energy. To this end:
1. We consider the plate to consist of
the film and substrate together, with combined thickness .
The mid-plane of the plate is at height above the base of the substrate.
2. We assume that the deformed plate has
a small, uniform curvature , and mid-plane strain .
As long as the curvature of the plate is small, the in-plane strain is a
function only of the in-plane displacement components of the plate, while the
curvature is a function only of the out-of-plane displacement (see Sect 10.6.2). This means that and can be taken as independent variables that
describe the deformed shape of the plate.
3. The total strain in the substrate
follows as , where is the distance from the mid-plane of the
plate.
4. The stress in the substrate is
proportional to the total strain. We
assume that the plate is in a state of plane stress, so that the stress
components in the substrate are
The strain energy
density in the substrate can then be calculated as
5. In the film, the total strain
includes contributions from an elastic distorsion of the lattice, together with
the inelastic strain, so .
The stress in the film is proportional to the elastic strain . The nonzero components of elastic
strain follow as and the stress in the film is
.
The strain energy density in the film
is
6. The total potential energy of the
system is the integral of the strain energy density
The resulting expression is lengthy
and will not be written out here.
7. Finally, the equilibrium values of and can be calculated from the condition that the
potential energy must be a minimum, which requires that
Solving the resulting linear
equations for and in terms of gives the formula relating and ; substituting the results into the
formula for stress in (5) and setting gives the formula for stress.
10.7.5 Bending of a circular plate
caused by a through-thickness temperature gradient
The figure illustrates the problem to
be solved. An initially flat, circular
plate, which lies in the plane is free of external force.
The plate has Young’s modulus , thermal expansion coefficient , radius R and thickness h. Its edges are free. The plate is heated on one face, and cooled
on the other, so as to establish a temperature distribution through the thickness of the plate. Here, is the temperature of the mid-plane of the
plate, while is the drop in temperature across the
plate. The thermal expansion of the
plate causes it to bend: our objective is to estimate the curvature of the
plate as a function of the temperature gradient .
The solution will account for large out-of-plane deflections, and will
predict that the plate buckles when the temperature gradient reaches a critical
value.
We will derive an approximate
solution, by assuming that the curvature of the plate is uniform. Since we are interested in calculating the
plate’s shape after buckling, the solution is obtained by means of the
Von-Karman theory described in Section 10.6.3. We denote the two principal
curvatures of the deformed plate by .
There are three possible equilibrium configurations, as follows
1. For temperature gradients satisfying
the plate bends into a spherical cap
shape, with two equal principal curvatures.
The curvatures are related to the temperature gradient by
2. For temperature gradients
the solution (1) is still a possible
equilibrium configuration, but is unstable.
There are infinitely many additional stable configurations, which have two
unequal principal curvatures. One of
these solutions can be related to the temperature gradient by
The other solutions have the same
principal curvatures, but the principal directions are different.
These results are displayed by
plotting the normalized curvature as a function of the dimensionless temperature
gradient in the figure, for a Poisson’s ratio (the graph is virtually identical for other
values of ). To visualize the significance of the graph, suppose that the
temperature drop across the plate is gradually increased from zero. The plate will first deform with two equal
principal curvatures, which are related to the temperature by the formula given
in (1). At the critical temperature, the
plate will buckle, and assume one of the two possible equilibrium configurations,
with two unequal principal curvatures.
Derivation: The
solution is derived by approximating the shape of the plate, and selecting the
deformed shape that minimizes the potential energy.
1. The displacement of the mid-plane of
the plate will be approximated as
where and are the two principal curvatures of the plate,
and are six adjustable parameters that must be
selected to minimize the potential energy of the plate.
2. The total strain in the plate must be
calculated using the Von-Karman formulas in Section 10.6.3, which yield
3. The plate is assumed to be in a state
of plane stress: the stress components can be calculated using the plane stress
version of the linear elastic constitutive equations
4. The strain energy
density in the plate can be calculated using the formulas given in Section
3.1.7 as . The result is lengthy and is best calculated
using a symbolic manipulation program.
5. The total strain
energy of the plate follows by integrating the strain energy density over the
volume of the plate as
.
To evaluate the integral, the strain energy
density can be expressed in polar coordinates by substituting , into the results of (4). Again, a symbolic manipulation program makes
the algebra painless.
6. The coefficients and the curvatures must now be determined by
minimizing the potential energy .
To proceed, we first calculate the coefficients in terms of the temperature gradient and
curvature by solving the six simultaneous equations .
Substituting the resulting formulas for back into the results of (5), and using the
two remaining conditions yields two equations for and
7. Eliminating the
temperature from these equations and simplifying the result gives the
expression
This shows that there are two
possible equilibrium configurations: in the first, ; in the second, the two curvatures
are related by .
Finally, these two possible relationships can be substituted back into
either of the two equations in (6) to relate the temperature gradient to the
curvatures.
10.7.6 Buckling of a cylindrical shell subjected to axial loading
The figure illustrates a thin-walled cylinder, with radius a, height L and wall thickness h. The shell is made from a linear elastic solid
with Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio .
It is loaded in compression by subjecting its ends to a prescribed axial
displacement .
We wish to estimate the critical axial strain or axial force that will cause the cylinder to buckle.
We will derive an approximate
solution, by assuming a shape for the buckled cylinder, and calculating the
shape that minimizes the potential energy of the system. Specifically, we assume that the radial
displacement of the surface of the cylinder at the instant of buckling has the
form .
The solution shows that:
1. Buckling occurs at a critical axial
strain
2. The corresponding axial load is
3. The wavelength of the buckling mode
is .
Note that the buckling mode describes the shape of the cylinder at the
instant when buckling begins; it does not correspond to the shape of the
cylinder after buckling.
The exact buckling strain and load are a factor smaller than this approximate result.
Derivation: We
must calculate, and then minimize, the potential energy of the cylinder. It is convenient to work through this problem
using curvilinear coordinates: we shall use cylindrical-polar coordinates to identify a point on the mid-plane of the
shell.
1. The position vector of a point in the
undeformed shell is
2. The natural basis vectors for the
undeformed shell are therefore
and the reciprocal basis vectors are
3. The components of the metric tensor
are
4. The covariant components of the
curvature tensor for the undeformed shell are
5. The position vector of the mid-plane
of the deformed shell is approximated as
It will greatly simplify subsequent
calculations to assume a priori that
6. The natural basis vectors for the
deformed shell are therefore
7. The covariant components of the
metric tensor and curvature for the deformed shell follow as
8. The in-plane strain tensor and
curvature change tensor may be approximated as
9. The strain energy of the deformed
shell can be calculated from
with
Substituting for and noting that reduces this result to
10. The potential energy can be evaluated
exactly, but the resulting expression is too long to write out in full. To proceed, we eliminate C by finding the value of C
that minimizes the potential energy (set and solve for C, then substitute the result
back into ). For the resulting expression for may be simplified to
11. The buckling load can now be deduced
from this result. Note that both , so the potential energy is
minimized with (no buckling) if , and with if .
The critical axial strain for which buckling is first possible corresponds
to the minimum value of with respect to .
The minimum occurs for , which gives a critical axial strain
of .
12. The axial force at buckling can be
computed trivially by noting that the cylinder is in a state of uniaxial axial
stress. The axial force is therefore
10.7.7 Torsion of an open-walled circular cylinder
The figure shows a thin-walled tube,
with radius and wall-thickness h, which has been slit along a line parallel to its axis. The tube is made from a linear elastic solid
with Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio , and is subjected to a twisting
moment parallel to its axis. The moment causes the end of the tube at to twist through an angle relative to the end at .
The displacement field and the
internal forces in the shell can be expressed as components in a
cylindrical-polar basis as follows
Note that this is one of the rare shell geometries for which
the internal force tensor T is not
symmetric.
Derivation: We choose the cylindrical-polar
coordinates as our coordinate system.
1. The position vector of a point in the
undeformed shell is
2. The natural basis vectors for the
undeformed shell are therefore
and the reciprocal basis vectors are
3. The components of the metric tensor
are
4. The covariant components of the
curvature tensor for the undeformed shell are
5. The Christoffel symbols for the
undeformed shell are
6. To proceed, we assume that the internal
stresses and moments in the cylinder are uniform; in addition, we assume small
strains, so that the geometric terms in the equilibrium equations can be
approximated using the geometry of the undeformed shell. The equilibrium equations therefore reduce to
7. The boundary conditions on are
8. The boundary conditions on are
9. The only nonzero components of
internal force are the in-plane shear forces and the twisting moments .
We therefore assume that the shell deforms in shear, so that the
position vector of a point in the deformed shell is
10. The natural basis vectors for the
deformed shell are
11. The metric tensor for the deformed
shell can be approximated by
12. The strain and curvature components follow
as
13. The constitutive equations can be
reduced to
Note that this is one of the rare
shell geometries for which the full coupled constitutive equations must be
used.
14. The equations listed in 6-8 and 12,13
can be solved to show that ,
15. The components of internal force and
moment may be expressed in terms of cylindrical-polar coordinates by noting
that , whence
16. Finally, external force and couple
per unit length acting on the end of the cylinder at are .
The resultant moment about the axis of the cylinder due to these
tractions is
It follows that the twist per unit
length is related to the twisting moment by .
Substituting this result back into the formulas for T and M and neglecting
the terms of order gives the result stated.
10.7.8 Membrane shell theory analysis of a spherical dome under
gravitational loading
The figure shows a thin-walled, spherical dome with radius R, thickness h and mass density .
We wish to calculate the internal forces induced by gravitational
loading of the structure. Shells that
are used for structural applications are usually modeled using a simplified
version of general shell theory, known as `Membrane Shell Theory.’ The theory simplifies the governing
equations by neglecting internal moments, so that the structure is supported
entirely by in-plane forces .
The theory is intended to be applied to masonry or concrete structures,
which can generally support substantial (compressive) in-plane forces but are
weak in bending. Of course, some bending
resistance is critical to ensure stability against buckling; in addition,
significant bending moments may develop near the edges of the structure if the
boundary conditions constrain the rotation or transverse motion of the shell;
so membrane theory must be used with caution.
The internal forces are best
expressed as components in a spherical-polar basis of unit vectors shown in Figure 10.40. The solution shows that the in-plane membrane
forces are
where g is the
gravitational acceleration.
A concrete dome should be designed so
that the membrane forces are compressive everywhere. The solution shows that the hoop forces are always compressive, but the
circumferential forces are compressive only if .
The dome should therefore be designed with
Derivation: We adopt as curvilinear coordinates
the spherical-polar coordinates shown in Figure 10.40. Let be the Cartesian basis that is used to provide
reference directions for as indicated in the figure. Then
1. The position vector of a point in the
undeformed shell can be expressed as
2. The natural basis vectors follow as
3. The reciprocal base vectors are
4. The Christoffel symbols for the
undeformed shell and its curvature components can be calculated as
5. We now introduce two assumptions (i)
the bending resistance of the shell is zero, so that the internal moment
components ; (ii) the deformations are small
enough so that the Christoffel symbols and curvature terms in the equilibrium
equations can be approximated using the values for the undeformed shell (this
amounts to enforcing equilibrium in the undeformed configuration of the shell).
In addition, the shell is in static equilibrium, and the external couples are
zero. The equations of motion of Section 10.5.8 can therefore be reduced to
6. We note that by symmetry, and the external force acting on
unit area of the shell is .
The contravariant components of p
can therefore be computed as .
Substituting these, as well as
the Christoffel symbols and curvature components reduces the equilibrium
equations to
7. Eliminating from the second and third equations gives
8. This equation can be integrated
directly by substituting , with the solution
where C is a constant of integration.
9. The constant of integration can be
found using the boundary condition at the edge of the shell at .
The reaction force must act in the plane of the shell, and the vertical
component of the force must balance the shell’s weight, so that the force per
unit length is .
The boundary condition requires that at , which shows that C=0.
10. can be calculated from the third equation in
(6), giving
11. Finally, the components of T in the cylindrical-polar basis can be
calculated by noting that , whence