Thermal buckling and natural vibration of a rectangular thin plate with in-plane stick-slip-stop boundaries

This study is devoted to analyzing the thermal buckling behavior and natural vibration characteristics of a uniformly heated rectangular thin plate with two adjacent in-plane frictional sliding edges. These sliding edges are initially at a stick status under the friction forces, and may slightly slip due to the thermal expansion of the plate until the sliding edges contact the stops, i.e. the bounds of the clearances. In the study, both temperature dependencies of material properties and friction coefficients are taken into consideration. For each case, the explicit equations for the buckling temperature rise and the natural frequencies of the plate are derived. Then, some parametric studies are made to reveal the influences of both normal forces and clearances on the critical buckling temperature rise and the natural vibration characteristics of the plate. The results show that both normal forces and clearances have significant influences on the critical buckling temperature rise and the natural frequencies of the plate, especially for the square plate, which has repeated natural frequencies. These results enable one to adjust the normal forces and the clearances in design in order to improve the mechanical performance of a heated rectangular thin plate.