Free vibration modes of rectangular plate under non-uniform heating: An experimental investigation

Experimental studies carried out to investigate the influence of local heating on vibration mode shapes of an isotropic plate are presented. Different types of temperature fields were created by keeping the heating source at different locations. The deflection vs temperature curve is used to estimate the critical buckling temperature of the plate using inflection point method. The plate was exposed to different levels of elevated temperature as a function of buckling temperature and natural frequencies and mode shapes of the plate are estimated experimentally. Experimental investigation revealed that the effect of heating on vibration modes of the plate is significant. With the increase in elevated temperature, decrease in free vibration frequencies, shifting of nodal and anti-nodal positions and jumping of the modes are observed clearly. Experimental results associated with temperature vs deflection curve, natural frequencies and mode shapes at elevated temperature are compared with numerical results based on finite element method and found that the results are in good agreement.