Analytic Solution for Free Vibrations of Folded Plate Structures

In this work, a new high accuracy solution for vibrations of structures made of plate segments is presented. Each plate segment is deforming both in and out of its plane, and the edges common to two plate segments must have compatible displacements, rotations, shear forces, and moments. It is obtained by using carefully chosen series that solve the combined partial differential equations of motion, for in-plane and out-of-plane deformations for all possible combinations of edge conditions. The number of terms in the series is taken such that convergence is ensured to the number of digits as shown. Examples of the new solutions are given and compared with available solutions for the same cases.