Forced vibrations of rectangular plates subjected to harmonic loading distributed over a rectangular subdomain

Quite frequently naval and ocean structural designers confront the problem of a plate or slab which supports a motor or engine which excites, dynamically, the structural element. Very often the excitation is treated as a concentrated force but, obviously, it acts over a finite area. The present study deals with the title problem for several combinations of boundary conditions by means of a variational approach and also using the finite element method. Dynamic displacement and bending moment amplitudes are determined.