Development of dynamic stiffness method for free vibration analysis of plate structures

Abstract

In the paper, an overview of the development of the dynamic-stiffness-method-based computational model for the free vibration analysis of plates has been presented. Starting from several formulations of the so-called dynamic stiffness elements, formulated at the Institute for Numerical Analysis and Design of Structures (INP) at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Belgrade in the last decade, a novel software framework FREEVIB has been developed and validated. FREEVIB is object-oriented software in Python environment, designed to predict free vibration characteristics in a wide range of possible structural problems (stepped, stiffened and folded plate structures, implying isotropic or orthotropic material formulations). The presented methodology still serves as a strong basis for further improvements through the extensive research efforts of authors, their collaborators and students.