Abstract
This work investigates a free vibration analysis of plates containing a single crack as the crack parameters (i.e. length , orientation and location) is varied. The influences of these parameters on the natural frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes are examined for several squared simply supported plates including internal crack or edge crack or corner crack. Vibration analysis for these plates is carried out using finite element method through ANSYS package version 11 . The validation results are presented and compared with the most recent numerical results found in literature. It is found from present study that the length of the crack as well as its orientation and location are shown to have significant effects on the natural frequency and mode shape of the plates. Some new cases are also discussed in detail. The study is particularly useful in the understanding and offering a better insight into the free vibration of the plates with various crack configurations.
