Nonlinear response of plates subjected to inplane and lateral pressure pulses.

The nonlinear response of a rectangular plate exposed to a far-field sonic boom disturbance is studied. The plate is subjected to both lateral and in-plane disturbances. The lateral disturbance is in the form of an N-shaped pressure pulse, and the in-plane disturbance is represented by a sinusoidal pulse. The equations of motion are reduced to a set of nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations using Galerkin's method. These equations are solved numerically using Hamming's (1959) modified predictor-corrector integration method. The effects of in-plane boundary conditions and in-plane inertia are investigated. The nonlinear results, when compared to the linear theory, serve to delineate the realm of validity of the linear theory.