Highly Accurate Wavelet Solution for Bending and Free Vibration of Circular Plates Over Extra-Wide Ranges of Deflections

The wavelet multiresolution interpolation Galerkin method in which both the unknown functions and nonlinear terms are approximated by their respective projections onto the same wavelet space is utilized to implement the spatial discretization of the highly coupled and nonlinear Von Karman equation for thin circular plates with various types of boundary conditions and external loads. Newton’s method and the assumption of a single harmonic response are then used for solving the static bending and free vibration problems, respectively. Highly accurate wavelet solutions for an extremely wide range of deflections are finally obtained by the proposed method. These results for moderately large deflections are in good agreement with existing solutions. Meanwhile, the other results for larger deflections are rarely achieved by using other methods. Comparative studies also demonstrate that the present wavelet method has higher accuracy and lower computational cost than many existing methods for solving geometrically nonlinear problems of thin circular plates. Moreover, the solutions for large deflection problems with concentrated load support the satisfactory capacity for handling singularity of the proposed wavelet method. In addition, a trivial initial guess, such as zero, can always lead to a convergent solution in very few iterations, even when the deflection is as large as over 46 times thickness of plate, showing an excellent convergence and stability of the present wavelet method in solving highly nonlinear problems.