Trigonometric wavelet-based method for elastic thin plate analysis

Dealing with the boundary conditions is one of the difficult problems when using wavelet function as trial function to carry out structural analysis. In this paper, the two-dimensional tensor product trigonometric Hermite wavelet that has both good approximation characteristics of trigonometric function and multi-resolution, local characteristics of wavelet is proposed as trial function, and the united formulation of elastic bending, vibration and buckling of rectangle thin plate (on elastic foundation) with different boundary conditions is derived based on the principle of minimum potential energy. Two approaches, hierarchical and multi-resolution approach, are presented to improve calculation accuracy. The impact of proposed method is discussed by different numerical examples. Due to the Hermite interpolation properties, the proposed trigonometric wavelet method can process all kinds of boundary conditions conveniently. The solution accuracy of hierarchical method can be increased steadily with raising the order of wavelet, while the solution accuracy of multi-resolution method can be improved along with increasing the scale of wavelet. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.