Abstract
The present paper aims to set forth a two-dimensional theory for the dynamics of plates that is valid over a large range of excitation. To construct a dynamic plate theory within the long-wavelength approximation, two dimensional-reduction procedures must be used for analyzing the low- and high-frequency behaviors under the dynamic variational-asymptotic method. Moreover, a separate and logically independent step for the short-wavelength regime is introduced into the present approach to avoid violation of the positive definiteness of the derived energy functional and to facilitate qualitative description of the three-dimensional dispersion curve in the short-wavelength regime. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the capabilities and accuracy of all of the formulas derived herein by using various dispersion curves through comparison with the three-dimensional finite element method.