Experimental and Computational Study of Simply Supported Thin Elastic Circular Plate under Forced Vibrations

In this research, vibration analysis of a thin elastic circular Aluminium plate has been investigated both experimentally and computationally. First six natural frequencies of thin Aluminium circular plate having diameter 220mm were calculated by performing modal analysis on ANSYS. In order to perform computational study, multizone quad/tri method was applied on the thin elastic circular plate to generate the quadrilateral mesh and simply supported boundary condition was applied. Mesh independence study was performed by varying the size of the mesh through sizing option and examining the natural frequency. To determine fundamental natural frequency experimentally, forced vibrations were induced into the plate with the help of system comprises of DC motor, steel wire and cam with the eccentricity of 8mm. The fundamental frequency of 100Hz was observed at maximum acceleration value of 1.14g measured with the help of accelerometer. For validation, values of numerically obtained natural frequencies were compared with theoretical method available in literature. Maximum percentage error of both frequencies is 0.64%, this validates accuracy of present study.