Influence of moving masses on rectangular plate dynamics

The dynamic responses of rectangular plates carrying heavy masses moving parallel to a side of the plate are studied. The method consists of expansion of the solution as a series of eigenfunctions orthonormalized in the Stieltjes sense. These eigenfunctions are determined in the sense of Green's function, satisfying in addition to initial conditions, the boundary and transient conditions due to the moving masses. The method presented in this paper is general so that the response of the plate to moving force systems can be approached as a special case. Numerical results include the variation of frequency of the plate with moving masses, transient responses under the masses, convergence of the solution series, and illustration of some comparisons of response of plate under moving masses and corresponding moving loads for which the effect of mass inertia is neglected.