Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Application of dierential quadrature (DQ) and harmonic

dierential quadrature (HDQ) for buckling analysis of thin isotropic
plates and elastic columns
mer Civalek

O
Dokuz Eylul University, Engineering Faculty, Civil Engineering Department, Izmir, Turkey
Received 7 January 2003; received in revised form 9 September 2003; accepted 15 September 2003

Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to compare the methods of dierential quadrature (DQ) and harmonic dierential quadrature
(HDQ). For this purpose, DQ and HDQ methods are presented for buckling, bending, and free vibration analysis of thin isotropic plates and columns. Plates of dierent shapes such as rectangular, circular, square, skew, trapezoidal, annular, and sectorial plate subjected to dierent boundary conditions are selected to demonstrate the accuracy of the method. Four dierent
support conditions are taken into consideration for columns. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the method and demonstrate its eciency. It is emphasized that the HDQ method gives more accurate results and needs less grid points than the DQ
method.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Harmonic dierential quadrature; Plates and columns; Buckling; Curvilinear domain; Numerical method

1. Introduction
It is well known that analysis of engineering systems
includes two main stages, such as, construction of a
mathematical model for a given physical phenomenon
and the solution to this mathematical equation. Real
physical systems or engineering problems are often
described by partial dierential equations, either linear
or non-linear and in most cases, their closed form solutions are extremely dicult to establish. As a result,
approximate numerical methods have been widely used
to solve partial dierential equations that arise in
almost all engineering disciplines. The most commonly
used numerical methods for such applications are the
nite element, nite dierence, Ritz, and boundary
element method, and most engineering problems can be
solved by these methods to adequate accuracy if a
proper and sucient number of grid points are used.


Corresponding address. Eryaman Eston Bloklar, Guven Apt. 18,
Daire 6, Eryaman-Ankara, Turkey. Tel.: +90-312-280-5036; fax:
+90-312-309-3665.
. Civalek).
E-mail address: civalek@yahoo.com (O

0141-0296/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engstruct.2003.09.005

In addition to this, in a large number of practical

applications where only reasonably accurate solutions
at few specied physical coordinates are of interest,
conventional numerical methods such as nite element
or nite dierence method require a large number of
grid points and a large computer capacity. Among a
variety of numerical methods, the nite element
method is by far the most eectively and widely used
method. Furthermore, the nite element method is still
an eective method especially for systems with complex
geometry and load conditions or applications with
non-linear behavior and it has many successful applications. In seeking a more ecient numerical method
that requires fewer grid points yet achieves acceptable
accuracy, the method of dierential quadrature (DQ)
was introduced by Bellman et al. [1]. Since then, applications of the dierential quadrature method to various
engineering problems have been investigated and their
success has shown the potential of the method as an attractive numerical analysis technique [6,26,28,30]. The
stability analysis of plates may be either in closed form
or approximate. The closed form solutions consist of

172

. Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

O

techniques for seeking direct solutions to the governing

dierential equation of plates. A closed form or rigorous
solution of plates can be obtained for only a limited
number of cases. For the majority of practical problems, a closed form namely analytical solution either
cannot be obtained or is of such a complicated nature
that it can be applied only with great diculty in a
practical computation. For many situations, numerical
solutions are the only method that can be employed.
The idea of the dierential quadrature method is to
quickly compute the derivative of a function at any
grid point within its bounded domain by estimating a
weighted linear sum of values of the function at a small
set of points related to the domain. In this study, critical buckling loads of circular, square, skew, and rectangular plates and elastic columns are investigated by
using DQ and HDQ.
There are many methods available in the literature to
study the buckling, bending, and dynamic behavior of
thin plates with dierent boundary and loading conditions. For details, one may refer to Timoshenko and
Gere [40], Szilard [55], Leissa [16], Reddy [54], Ugural
[52], etc. Exact solutions for plate problems are rather
dicult to obtain, except for a few simple cases. In
many cases, one may have to resort to various approximate, namely numerical methods. Each method has its
own advantages and disadvantages. Of the various
methods proposed in recent times, one can cite the
nite dierences, nite element and boundary element
methods as the most ecient and universal methods
for solving variant type plate problems.
The focus of this paper is on the comparison study
of the DQ and HDQ methods. For this reason, the
applications are limited to those problems having
smooth solutions for simplicity. In addition to this,
since only thin plates are considered in this paper, there
are some assumptions regarding the behavior of thin
plates. These include the transverse deections of the
plates being small when compared to the thickness of
the plate. Thus, middle-surface stretching caused by
bending can be neglected; that is, membrane action
resulting from exure is negligible compared to the
exure. The material of the plate is homogeneous, isotropic, and obeys Hookes law.
2. Dierential quadrature method (DQM)
The numerical solution of partial dierential equations plays a considerable role in the areas of engineering. In many cases, all that is desired is a moderately
accurate solution at a few points which can be calculated rapidly. Therefore, an eective numerical technique for the solution of non-linear partial equations is
very desirable. The dierential quadrature method is
one which can satisfy the above purpose. The basic
idea of the dierential quadrature method is that the

derivative of a function, with respect to a space variable

at a given sampling point, is approximated as a weighted linear sum of the sampling points in the domain of
that variable [2]. As with other numerical analysis techniques, such as nite element or nite dierence methods, the DQM also transforms the given dierential
equation into a set of analogous algebraic equations in
terms of the unknown function values at the reselected
sampling points in the eld domain. The problem areas
in which applications of the dierential quadrature
method may be found in the available literature include
uid mechanics, static and dynamic structural mechanics, static aeroelasticity, and some problems in
chemical engineering [3,5,7,8]. Mingle applied the differential quadrature method to the solutions of the
non-linear diusion equation [29]. Civan and Sliepcevich extended and generalized the method of dierential quadrature and applied it to transport processes
[20], the Poisson equation [22], multi-dimensional problems [21] and ThomasFermi equation [23]. In recent
years, the DQM has been largely promoted by Bert
and associates who were the rst to introduce the
method as a tool for structural analysis [4]. Liew and
his co-workers also made most important studies on
DQ and HDQ [25,50]. In fact, Liew and his associates
had been made most eective in supplementing to the
theory and application of the DQM. Recent work of
Liew and associates was mainly on the three-dimensional vibration, bending and stability analysis of
plates [36,44,50]. Various problems in structural mechanics have been solved successfully using this method
[9,24,25]. The authors applied the DQM to the stability, vibration and bending analysis of elastic bars
[12,13], circular plates and guided beams [14,15]. It has
been claimed that the DQM has the capability of producing highly accurate solutions with minimal computational eort. Recently, Liew and his co-workers also
proposed a new kind of DQ method [57]. This new
proposed method has been called the moving least
squares dierential quadrature (MLSDQ). This new
approach (MLSDQ) exploits the merits of both the DQ
and meshless method. The method seemingly has a
high potential as an alternative to the above mentioned
conventional numerical solution techniques such as
the nite element and nite dierence methods
[8,17,28,32,37]. All these studies have demonstrated
that the application of the DQ methods leads to accurate results with less computational eort and that
there is a potential that the method may become an
alternative to conventional methods such as nite differences and nite element [34,38,39]. Therefore,
research on extensions and applications of the method
becomes an important endeavor. In the dierential
quadrature method, a partial derivative of a function
with respect to a space variable at a discrete point is
approximated as a weighted linear sum of the function

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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173

values at all discrete points in the region of that variable.

For simplicity, we consider a one-dimensional function
u(x) in the 1; 1 domain, and N discrete points. Then,
the rst derivatives at point i, at x xi , are given by:


N
X
@u

Aij uxj ; i 1;2; . . . ;N

1
ux xi


@x xxi j1
where xj are the discrete points in the variable domain,
u(xj) are the function values at these points and Aij are
the weighting coecients for the rst-order derivative
attached to these function values. Bellman et al. [1,2]
suggested two methods to determine the weighting
coecients. The rst one is to let Eq. (1) be exact for
the test functions
k1

uk x x

k 1;2; . . . ;N

which leads to a set of linear algebraic equations

k  1xk2
i

N
X

Aij xk1
;
j

j1

for i 1;2; . . . ;N

and k 1;2; . . . ;N

which represents N sets of N linear algebraic equations.

This equation system has a unique solution because its
matrix is of Vandermonde form. This equation may be
solved for the weighting coecients analytically using
Hammings method [27] or numerical method using
certain special algorithms for Vandermonde equations,
such as the method of Bjorck and Pereyra [10]. In
order to reduce the complexity of the derivative
approximation formulae and thereby reduce the computational eort, it is advantageous to use quadrature
approximation formulae for also the second-, thirdand higher-order derivatives. Thus, the weighting coefcients for each formula will be dierent from those for
the rst-order derivative. Similar to the rst order, the
second-order derivative can be written as:


N
X
@ 2 u


uxx xi 2

Bij uxj ; i 1;2; . . . ;N

4
@x xxi j1
where the Bij is the weighting coecients for the secondorder derivative. Eq. (4) also can be written as:


N
N
X
X
@ 2 u

Aij
Ajk uxk ;
uxx xi 2

@x xxi j1 k1
i 1;2; . . . ;N

Again, the function given by Eq. (2) is used so that

the second-order derivative is:
k  1k  2xk3

N
X

Bij xk1
j

Fig. 1. Rectangular domain and grid distribution.

j1

This can be solved in the same manner as indicated

for Eq. (3) above. Similar to the one-dimensional prob-

lem, we can solve a two-dimensional problem with

basic variables in a rectangular domain (Fig. 1). Supposing there are Nx points in the x-direction and Ny
points in the y-direction.
The rth-order partial derivative of ux;y with
respect to x, the sth-order partial derivative of ux;y
with respect to y and the (r s)th-order partial derivative of ux;y with respect to both x and y can be discretely expressed at the point xi ;yj as


Nx
X
@ r u


r

A uxk ;yj ; r 1;2; . . . ;Nx  1

7
@xr
xxi k1 ik


Ny
X
@ s u


s

B uxi ;yk ; s 1;2; . . . ;Ny  1

@ys
yyj k1 jk

 

Ny
Nx
X
X
@ rs u


@ r @ s u


r
s

A
Bjm uxk ;ym ;
ik




@xr @ys xi yj @xr @ys xi yj k1
m1
i 1;2; . . . ;Nx
r

and j 1;2; . . . ;Ny

where Aij and Bij are the weighting coecients associated with the rth-order partial derivative of ux;y
with respect to x at the discrete point xi and the sthorder partial derivative of ux;y with respect to y at yj,
respectively. A comprehensive and chronological
review of the work related to the DQ method can be
found in the well-known paper of Bert and Malik [8].

3. Harmonic dierential quadrature

Another way to determine the weighting coecients
is to employ harmonic functions, named the harmonic
dierential quadrature (HDQ). Harmonic dierential
quadrature has been proposed by Striz et al. [19]. Unlike the dierential quadrature that uses the polynomial
functions, such as power functions, Lagrange interpolated, and Legendre polynomials as the test functions, harmonic dierential quadrature uses harmonic

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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174

or trigonometric functions as the test functions. Thus,

this method is called the HDQ method. Shu and Xue
proposed an explicit means of obtaining the weighting
coecients for the HDQ [18]. The harmonic test function hk x used in this approach is dened as:
x  x0 p
x  xk1 p
x  xk1 p
x  xN p
sin
sin
sin
2
2
2
2
;
xk  x0 p
xk  xk1 p
xk  xk1 p
xk  xN p
sin
sin
sin
sin
2
2
2
2
for k 0;1;2;. . . ;N
10
sin

hk x

According to the HDQ, the weighting coecients of

the rst-order derivatives Aij for i 6 j can be obtained
by using the following formula:
p=2Pxi
Aij
;
Pxj sinxi  xj =2p

i;j 1;2;3; . . . ;N

11

where:
N
Y

Pxi

sin

j1;j6i

x  x 
i
j
p ;
2

for j 1;2;3; . . . ;N

The weighting coecients of the second-order derivatives Bij for i 6 j can be obtained using following
formula:
h
x  x  i
i
j
1
Bij Aij 2Aii  pctg
p ;
2
i;j 1;2;3; . . . ;N
12
The weighting coecients of the rst-order and
p
second-order derivatives Aij for i j are given as:
p

Aii 

N
X

Aij ; p 1 or 2;

j1;j6i

and

for i 1;2; . . . ;N

13

The weighting coecient of the third- and fourthorder derivatives can be computed easily from Aij and
Bij by [18]
Cij

N
X
Aik Bkj

14

k1
N
X
Dij
Bik Bkj

choice of grid points. It should be mentioned that in

the dierential quadrature solutions, the sampling
points in various coordinate directions may be dierent
in number as well as in their type. Three dierent types
of sampling grids are taken into consideration in this
study. A natural, and often convenient, choice for sampling points is that of equally spaced points. These
points are given by:
Type-I : xi
yi

i1
;
Ny  1

15

The main advantage of HDQ over the dierential

quadrature is its ease of the computation of the weighting coecients without any restriction on the choice of
grid points.

i 1;2; . . . ;Nx

i 1;2; . . . ;Ny

16a
16b

in the related directions. Sometimes, the dierential

quadrature solutions deliver more accurate results with
unequally spaced sampling points. A better choice for
the positions of the grid points between the rst and
the last points at the opposite edges is that corresponding to the zeros of orthogonal polynomials such as the
zeros of Chebyshev polynomials [36]. Another choice
that is found to be even better than the Chebyshev and
Legendre polynomials is the set of points proposed by
Shu and Richards [31,32]. These points are given as:


 
1
2i  1
Type-II : xi
1  cos
p ;
2
Nx  1
i 1;2; . . . ;Nx


 
1
2i  1
1  cos
yi
p ;
2
Ny  1

17a
j 1;2; . . . ;Ny

17b

in the x- and y-directions, respectively. These type grid

points are known the ChebyshevGaussLobatto
points.
Type-III: Equally spaced sampling points with adjacent-d points. This practical method proposed by Jang
et al. [28] employs points at a very small distance
(d 0:00001) from the boundary points. The sampling
grid points are dened as:
x1 0; x2 d; xN1 1  d;
xN 0

k1

i1
;
Nx  1

xi

i1
;
N 3

for adjacent points

for i 3;4; . . . ; N  2

18
19

These three types of sampling points are more general,

well-known, and widely used by the DQ researchers.
More detailed information for choices of sampling grid
points can be found in the literature [8,13,14,33,53].

3.1. Choices of sampling grid points

A decisive factor for the accuracy of the dierential
quadrature solution is the choice of the sampling or
grid points. The main advantage of HDQ over the differential quadrature is its ease of the computation of
the weighting coecients without any restriction on the

4. Numerical applications and results

To verify the analytical formulation presented in the
previous section, elastic columns, circular, rectangular,
skew, trapezoidal, eccentric sectorial, and square plates
are considered. Plates of dierent types of boundary

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

O

conditions are selected as test samples to demonstrate

the applicability and accuracy of the HDQ method.
The governing dierential equations for free vibration,
bending and buckling of plates and columns are presented. The present formulations are based on classical
small deection and thin plate theory. Then, the DQ
and HDQ methods are applied to these dierential
equations. The results are obtained for each case using
various numbers of grid points. Subsequently, several
test samples for dierent support conditions are selected to demonstrate the convergence properties, accuracy and the simplicity in numerical implementation of
the HDQ procedures. The numerical results for various
example plate and column problems are tabulated
(Tables 19) and gured (Figs. 410), and a comparison of the present results with exact or other numerical
values available in the literature, when possible, is
made. In order to simplify the presentation, S, C, and
F represent simply supported, clamped, and free supports, respectively.
4.1. Buckling of circular plates under a uniform
compressive edge load
Consider a thin, circular plate of uniform thickness
subject to a uniform compressive radial load Fc distributed around the edge of the plate. The grid spacing
employed for circular plates with radius a is shown in
Fig. 2. There were two dierent governing equations in
the literature [9]. Both the third-order and the fourthorder dierential equations can be used to obtain the
buckling load. In this study, only the third-order governing equation is used. This equation is given by:
 
 


@3u 1 @2u
1 @u
Fc a2 @u


;
 2
@r3 r @r2
r @r
@r
D
i 2;3; . . . ; N  1

20

where a is known as the outside radius of the plate and

175

D denotes the exural rigidity of plates, and is given as

D Eh3 =121  m2 , m is the Poisson ratio, E is the
modulus of elasticity of the plate material, h is the uniform plate thickness, u is the displacement in the zdirection. Applying the dierential quadrature method
to Eq. (20), one obtains
N
X

Cij Uj

j1

N
N
1 X
1 X
Bij Uj  2
Aij Uj
Ri j1
Ri j1

Fc a2
Aij Uj 0; for i 2;3; . . . ;N  1
21
D
Due to lowest buckling mode being axisymmetric,
the relation

Aij Uj 0
must be applied to nd the buckling load.
Table 1 tabulates the critical buckling loads obtained
by the HDQ method for thin, isotropic circular plates
with clamped and simply supported boundary conditions using the third-order governing equations.
Table 1 includes both the dierent numerical solutions
and the exact solutions. The authors used the nite
element method (FEM) for this problem earlier [11].
The results obtained from nite element method are
indicated by FEM. DQ results are obtained by using
the third-order dierential equations for N 7 grid
points. In this case, Type-I sampling grid points are
used. For N 9, Bert et al. [9] obtained the buckling
loads. These results are also given in Table 1 for comparison. For N 9, HDQ and DQ results are also
obtained once again for this problem. Type-II grid
stretching is chosen for this second case. The obtained
buckling loads are compared with those calculated with
both the DQ and the exact method. The harmonic differential quadrature results are generally in agreement
with the results produced from the analytical [35] and
the DQ results [9]. It is found that the HDQ method

Table 1
 cr Ncr a2 =D)
Critical buckling load of the circular plates (m 0:30; N
Support
conditions

DQ (N 7),
this study

FEM
(N 11) [11]

DQ
(N 9) [9]

HDQ (N 7),
this study

HDQ (N 9),
this study

Exact
[35]

SS
CC

4.18
14.57

4.12
14.74

4.20
14.68

4.19
14.66

4.20
14.68

4.20
14.68

Table 2
 cr Ncr a2 =D)
Buckling loads of square plates (m 0:30; N
Support
conditions

DQ (7  7),
this study

HDQ (7  7),
this study

DQ
(9  9) [9]

HDQ (9  9),
this study

Exact
[35]

SSSS
CCCC
CSCS
SCSC

4.19
14.57
63.78
6.82

4.18
14.62
64.85
7.05

4.20
14.68
66.36
7.856

4.20
14.68
66.30
7.67

4.20
14.68
66.32
7.69

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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176

Table 3
 cr Ncr a2 =D)
Comparison of buckling loads of square plates (m 0:30; N
Support
conditions

HDQ
(5  5)

HDQ
(7  7)

HDQ
(9  9)

HDQ
(11  11)

FEM
(5  5) [11]

FEM
(7  7) [11]

FEM
(9  9) [11]

FEM
(11  11),
this study

Exact
[35]

SSSS
CCCC
CSCS
SCSC

4.12
14.18
64.01
6.93

4.18
14.62
64.85
7.05

4.20
14.68
66.30
7.67

4.20
14.68
66.32
7.69

4.02
13.55
70.11
8.84

4.08
13.82
69.75

4.12
13.98
68.79

4.16
14.56
68.34
7.63

4.20
14.68
66.32
7.69

Table 4
Non-dimensional buckling load of rectangular plates for various aspect ratios
a/b

CCCS

1/5
2/5
4/5
5/5

CSSS

HDQ
(5  5)

DQ
(5  5) [42]

FEM
(9  9) [11]

HDQ
(7  7)

HDQ
(5  5)

DQ
(5  5) [42]

HDQ
(7  7)

FEM
(9  9) [11]

42.36
43.78
59.65
81.54

40.02
42.82
60.21
78.27

38.75
41.10
57.49
80.04

41.18
42.80
61.09
79.56

22.78
21.71
37.40
49.82

20.95
23.52
36.13
48.03

20.52
24.01
35.96
49.10

21.13
24.79
38.45
48.68

FD (N 5) [41]

Exact [40]

HDQ (N 5)

HDQ (N 7)

HDQ (N 9)

DQ (N 7)

DQ (N 9)

41.360
2.333
11.548
22.296

39.478
2.467
9.869
20.142

38.745
2.556
10.184
22.960

39.034
2.304
9.621
21.025

39.476
2.466
9.869
20.142

40.067
2.288
9.614
21.239

39.450
2.461
9.868
20.133

Table 5
Comparison of column buckling loads

CC
CF
SS
CS

Table 6
Comparison of column buckling loads for dierent numerical methods
Support
conditions

FD
(N 5) [41]

FEM
(N 5)

FEM
(N 7)

FEM
(N 9)

HDQ
(N 5)

HDQ
(N 7)

DQ
(N 5)

DQ
(N 7)

Exact
[40]

CC
CF
SS
CS

41.360
2.333
11.548
22.296

40.254
2.514
10.376
21.946

39.984
2.547
9.816
20.664

39.614
2.482
9.897
20.285

39.547
2.441
9.851
20.205

39.478
2.467
9.869
20.141

39.244
2.419
9.843
20.218

39.478
2.466
9.871
20.140

39.478
2.467
9.869
20.142

Table 7
Buckling coecients of clamped skew plates [b=a 1; Ncr Fx a2 =D] for dierent type grid points
Skew
angle (h)

DQ (9  9),
present studya

DQ (11  11),
present studyb

HDQ (7  7),
present studyc

HDQ (9  9),
present studyd

HDQ (9  9),
present studye

FEM
Wang et al. DQM
(11  11) [11] (11  11) [42]

45
60
75
90

21.35
12.89
11.82
9.96

20.29
13.49
10.90
11.23

20.01
13.66
10.80
10.02

21.01
12.94
11.13
10.02

20.25
13.52
10.82
10.06

18.65
11.73
12.44
13.08

a
b
c
d
e

Type-I grid sampling points (DQ9  9).

Type-II grid sampling points (DQ11  11).
Type-II grid sampling points (HDQ7  7).
Type-I grid sampling points (HDQ9  9).
Type-II grid sampling points (HDQ9  9).

20.23
13.54
10.84
10.07

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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177

Table 8
Buckling coecients of trapezoidal plate [a=h 1; Ncr Fx a2 =p2 D; m 0:3; a 90]
Support
conditions

DQ
(11  11)

Ref. [49]

Ref. [48]

FEM [47]

HDQ
(11  11)

FEM
(15  15) [11]

FEM
(11  11) [11]

SSSS
CCCC
SCSCa

4.03
9.97
7.82

4.00
10.08
7.70

4.00
10.07

4.00

4.01
10.08
7.68

4.02
10.06
7.72

3.98
11.07

Exact (Timoshenko and Gere, 1959): 7.690.

Table 9
Comparison for HDQ and DQ solutions for rst three non-dimensionala vibration frequencies of sectorial plates (r=b 2:0; a 45; SSSS)
DQ (Nn Ng 17)
X1
e=b 0
68.410
e=b 1:0 108.214
p
a
X xa2 qhD.

HDQ (Nn Ng 15)

Polar mesh FD [52]

Ref. [46]

X2

X3

X1

X2

X3

X1

X2

X3

X1

X2

X3

151.820
143.208

189.622
210.875

68.380
107.450

150.964
144.964

189.594
209.784

153.851
111.254

148.730
140.476

68.379

150.98

189.60

possesses both the advantages of DQ and the exibility

of the FEM.
4.2. Buckling analysis of thin, isotropic rectangular
plates
The governing dierential equation of buckling of a
thin rectangular plate is given by:
@4u
@4u
@4u
1 @2u

H
x
@x4
@x2 @y2 @y4
D @x2

22

where u is the transverse displacement of the midsurface of the plate. Eq. (22) may be written in the follow-

ing non-dimensional form

@4U
@4U
@4U
a2 @ 2 U
2k2
k4
Hx
4
2
2
4
@X
@X @Y
@Y
D @X 2

23

where U is the dimensionless mode function of the

deection, X x=a, Y y=b are the dimensionless
coordinates, a and b are the dimensions of the plate
parallel to x-axis and y-axis, k a=b is ratio of the
plate edge length or aspect ratio, and Hx is the uniaxial
compression load. D denotes the exural rigidity of
plates and it is given as D Eh3 =121  m2 , m is the
Poisson ratio, E is the modulus of elasticity of the plate
material, h is the uniform plate thickness. Eq. (23) can
be given by applying the DQM as
Nx
X

Dik Ukj 2k

k1

k4

Nx
X

Bjm

k1
Ny
X

Djk Uik a2

k1

for i 1; 2; . . . ;Nx

Ny
X

Bik Ukm

m1
Nx
Hx X
Bik Ukj ;
D k1

and

j 1; 2; . . . ;Ny

24

where Nx and Ny are the number of grid points along

the x- and y-directions, respectively, as shown in Fig. 1,
and Dik, Dik, Bik, Bjm represent the weighting coecients of the fourth- and second-order derivatives along
x-and y-directions for the dierential quadrature
approximation. Eq. (23) is a fourth-order partial dierential equation, so we have to write two boundary conditions at each edge for the stability analysis of plates.

Fig. 2. Circular plates and typical grid sampling points.

4.2.1. Boundary conditions for rectangular plates

4.2.1.1. Four edges clamped (CCCC). The boundary conditions for a plate clamped on all four edges are

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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178

that the displacement and rotation must be zero on the

edge.
UX ;0 UX ;1 0

and

U0;Y U1;Y 0

@U
@U
X ;0
X ;1 0
@Y
@Y
@U
@U
0;Y
1;Y 0
and
@X
@X
Applying the dierential quadrature to these boundary conditions
U1j UNj 0

and

Ui1 UiN 0

25a

U1j UNj 0

and

Ui1 UiN 0

25b

Nx
X

A1k Ukj

k1
Ny
X

Nx
X

ANk Ukj 0

25c

k1
Ny
X
A1k Uik
ANk Uik 0;

k1

k1

for i 1; 2; . . . ;Nx

and

j 2; 3; . . . ;Ny  1: 25d

4.2.1.2. Four edges simply supported (SSSS). Displacement and moment must be zero on the edge
UX ;0 UX ;1 0
2

and

U0;Y U1;Y 0

@ U
@ U
X ;0
X ;1 0
@Y 2
@Y 2
@2U
@2U
and
0;Y
1;Y 0
2
@X
@X 2
Applying the dierential quadrature to these boundary conditions
U1j UNj 0

and

Ui1 UiN 0

26a

U1j UNj 0

and

Ui1 UiN 0

26b

Nx
X

B1k Ukj

k1
Ny
X

Nx
X

BNk Ukj 0

26c

k1

B1k Uik

k1

Ny
X
BNk Uik 0;

increasing the number of grid points within the range

5 Nx Ny 9, the HDQ results monotonically
approach the corresponding exact results. Type-II grid
points are used as the grid points. It should be noted
that the HDQ solution converges at a smaller grid size
as compared to the DQ solution. Buckling loads
obtained for square plates are presented in Table 3
together with the exact solutions [35] and nite element
solutions obtained by using four dierent grid numbers
in each direction are presented in the table. The results
obtained from the nite element method are indicated
by FEM. Reasonably accurate results can be achieved
by using only 7  7 grid points for HDQ. The variation
of the error with the number of grid points was shown
in Fig. 3 for the HDQ and FE methods. The percentage of error had been reduced in parallel to the
increase of the grid points. In this gure, SSSS and
CCCC supports are taken as boundary conditions.
The best solution is obtained for 9  9 grid sizes by
using the HDQ method. However, reasonably accurate
results can be achieved by using 13  13 grid points for
the FEM in this case. From the table, the convergence
of the HDQ method is seen to be very good. It is also
shown in this table that HDQ method produces better
convergent solutions than the FEM when a similar
number of grid points are used.
In the case of the rectangular plate, the obtained
results are presented for aspect ratios of k a=b 1=5,
2/5, 4/5, 5/5. Two dierent type plate congurations
(CCCS and CSSS) are taken into consideration.
Table 4 presents the non-dimensional buckling load for
rectangular plates. For the harmonic dierential quadrature method, the number of discrete points considered along the non-dimensional X-axis and Y-axis
was taken to be ve and seven of these cases (i.e.,
Nx Ny 5; Nx Ny 7). These results are also
found by Wang et al. [43]. Wang had used ve grid
points in each direction for this problem. Reasonably
accurate results can be achieved by using 9  9 grid
points for the FEM in this case. For the 9  9 grid

k1

for i 1; 2; . . . ;Nx

and

j 2; 3; . . . ;Ny  1: 26d

and
Ny
Nx X
X
Aik Bjm Ukm 0

27

k1 m1

at the corner. The other possible support conditions

can be obtained similar to the equations above. Table 2
summarizes the numerical results of non-dimensionalized buckling loads by DQ and HDQ for cases of
square plates with four dierent support conditions.
As can be seen, the HDQ results compare very well
with the analytical solutions from references
[35] for only 9  9 grid points. It is observed that by

Fig. 3.

Percentage error with grid numbers for square plates.

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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179

In the following, boundary conditions are given for

these four cases, respectively.
4.3.1. Clampedsimply supported (CS)
W 0 and

dW =dX 0

W 0 and

d2 W =dX 2 0

at X 0
at X 1

4.3.2. Clampedclamped supported (CS)

Fig. 4.

Percentage error with grid numbers for column.

W 0 and

dW =dX 0 at X 0

W 0 and

dW =dX 0 at X 1

4.3.3. Simply supportedsimply supported (SS)

sizes (8  8 mesh) in the FEM, the dimension of the

resulting system matrix is 147  147. However, only
7  7 grid points can produce quite accurate results by
HDQ. The results are obtained by solving an eigenvalue problem of 9  9 matrix for HDQ. The computing
time on a Pentium-II is less than 1 s for this case.

W 0 and

d2 W =dX 2 0 at X 0

W 0 and

d2 W =dX 2 0 at X 1

4.3.4. Clamped supportedfree end (CF)

W 0 and
2

dW =dX 0

d W =dX 0
4.3. Buckling of linear elastic columns
The non-dimensional governing dierential equation
for buckling behavior of an elastic column is given [40]
by:
d4 W
d2 W
EI
PL2
0
28
4
dX
dX 2
Dierential quadrature form of this equation is
N
X
j1

Dij Wj k

N
X

Bij Wj 0;

i 1; 2; 3; . . . ;N

29

j1

where X x=L, W w=L and k PL2 =EI.

Numerical applications have been performed for a
linearly elastic column under four sets of dierent
boundary conditions, namely simply supportedsimply
supported (SS), clampedsimply supported (CS),
clampedclamped (CC), and cantilever beam (CF).

Fig. 5.

and

at X 0

d W =dX 3 0 at X 1

The dierential quadrature approximation to the

above equations has to be applied at each discrete
point on the grid. For the case of (CS) support conditions,
W1 0

and

N
X

A1j Wj 0

30a

j1

WN 0

and

N
X

BNj Wj 0

30b

j1

For (CC) support conditions,

W1 0

and

N
X

A1j Wj 0

31a

j1

WN 0

and

N
X

ANj Wj 0

j1

(a) An actual arbitrary quadrilateral domain; (b) standard computational domain.

31b

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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180

Fig. 6.

(a) Curvilinear quadrilateral domain; (b) standard square domain.

rewritten as:

For (SS) boundary conditions,

W1 0

and

N
X

B1j Wj 0

32a

j1

WN 0

and

N
N
X
X
Dij Wj k Bij Wj 0;
j1

N
X

j1

for i 3;4; . . . ; N  2
BNj Wj 0

34

32b

j1

and for (CF) boundary conditions

W1 0

and

N
X

A1j Wj 0

33a

j1
N
X

BNj Wj 0

and

j1

N
X

CNj Wj 0

33b

j1

The set of Eqs. (30), (31), (32) and (33) or other

equations for beams having dierent boundary conditions are redundant, because for each column, four
equations in their supports and N equations in (29) are
given. In order to remove this redundancy, we have to
drop certain equations such as i 1;2; N  1 and (N)
in the essence Eq. (29). Consequently, Eq. (29) can be

Fig. 7.

Trapezoidal plate.

Thus, the buckling load of column under a given

axial load P can be found by solving above eigenvalue
equations with appropriate boundary conditions. For
this case, adjacent-d points (Type-III) are used as
the sampling grid points. Tables 5 and 6 summarize the
numerical results of buckling loads by HDQ for the
case of linear elastic columns with four dierent
boundary conditions. It is shown in this table that the
HDQ results using ve grid points are more accurate
than those of the DQ for seven grid points. The buckling load by Chajes [41] using the nite dierence (FD)
method is also presented in Table 5 for comparison.
The results obtained from nite dierence method are
indicated by FD. For the buckling load of columns,

Fig. 8.

Eccentric sectorial plate.

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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181

ing dierential equations for skew plates under uniaxial

compression Fx along the x-direction and its dierential quadrature form are given, respectively, as:
uxxxx  4kcoshuxxxy 2k2 1 2cos2 huxxyy
 4k3 coshuxyyy k4 uyyyy 
Fig. 9.

Simply supported annular plates.

N 9 grid points provide acceptable results with a

maximum discrepancy of 0.005% for the clamped
clamped (CC) boundary conditions and a maximum
discrepancy of 0.04% for clampedfree (CF) support
case for HDQ. In addition to this, if we use the DQ
method with N 9 grid points, it provides acceptable
results with a maximum discrepancy of 0.07% for the
CC support condition and 0.25% for CF support
condition. From Table 6, one can conclude that for all
numerical methods, the solutions converge as the grid
number is increased. A reasonably converged solution
may be achieved for 5 grids by the HDQ. In addition
to this, a reasonably converged solution may be
obtained for 9 grid points using FEM. The variation of
the error with the number of grid points is shown in
Fig. 4 for the DQ, HDQ, and FEM methods. The percentage of error had been reduced in parallel to the
increase of the grid points. In this gure (Fig. 4), SS
support case is taken as boundary conditions. The best
solution is obtained for N 7 grid points by using the
HDQ method.

Nx
X

Din unj  4kcosh

n1

Cin

n1

Ny
X

Ajm umn

m1

Ny
Nx
X
X
2k2 1 2cos2 h Bin Bjm uim
n1

m1

Ny
Ny
Nx
X
X
X
 2k2 1 2cos2 h Ain Cjm umn k2 Djm umi
n1

m1

m1

Nx
X

a2
Fx sin4 h=4 Ain umj ; i 1;2; . . . ;Nx
D
n1

and

j 1;2; . . . ;Ny

36

where h is the skew angle, k a=b is the aspect ratio, u

is the displacement in the z-direction, and D is the exural rigidity. Clamped support condition with movable
edges is considered. In accordance with this condition,
the plate is prevented from moving in the z-direction or
rotating at the boundaries. In this case, both the deection and slope must vanish. The edges of the plate are,
however, free to move in the xy plane. These support
conditions are given as:

4.4. Buckling analysis of skew plates

It is known that there are no closed-form solutions
for the buckling behavior of skew plates. Therefore,
numerical methods must be utilized to solve the problem. Consider a thin isotropic skew plate. The govern-

Nx
X

a2
Fx sin4 h=4ux 35
D

u 0 and

@u
0 at x 0
@x

and

x1

u 0 and

@u
0
@y

and

y1

at y 0

and their DQ form can be written as

u1 0

and

Nx
X

A1n unj 0;

uN 0

n1

and

Nx
X

ANn un 0

37a

n1

u1 0

and

Ny
X

A1m umi 0; uN 0

m1

and

Ny
X

ANm umi 0

37b

m1

Fig. 10. Non-dimensional fundamental frequency of annular plates.

These boundary conditions are incorporated into

Eq. (36). Since the rst and last displacements are

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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182

known, Eq. (36) is rewritten for boundary conditions

Nx
X

Din unj  4kcosh

n1

Nx
X

Cin

n1

Ny
X

Ajm umn

m1

Ny
Nx
X
X
2k 1 2cos h Bin Bjm uim
2

n1
Nx
X

 2k2 1 2cos2 h

n1

m1

Ain

Ny
X

Cjm umn k2

m1

Ny
X

Djm umi

m1

Nx
X
a2
Fx sin4 h=4 Ain umj ;
D
n1

i 2; . . . ;Nx  1 and j 2; . . . ;Ny  1

38

Consequently, we solve the remaining eigenvalue

problem to obtain the natural frequencies. Numerical
results had been obtained for k 1. Four dierent
skew angles h are taken into consideration. The buckling coecients for clamped skew plates are listed in
Table 7 together with those given by Wang et al. [42].
HDQ and DQ results are obtained for CCCC support conditions using various numbers of grid points
for comparison. Reasonably accurate results can be
achieved by using 9 grid points in HDQ for Type-I and
Type-II grid samplings in the related directions. Both 7
and 1 grid points are used in HDQ for Type-II in each
direction. ChebyshevGaussLobatto grid points
(Type-II) have been shown to be consistently better
than any other choice under consideration. Hence, it
can be concluded that by using same grid sizes, Type-II
grid solutions furnish higher accuracy for this problem.

5. HDQ method for irregular domains

5.1. Straight-sided quadrilateral plates
Consider an arbitrary straight-sided quadrilateral
plate in the Cartesian xy plane, as shown in Fig. 5(a).
The geometry of this plate can be mapped into a rectangular plate in the natural ng plane, as shown in
Fig. 5(b). By employing the following transformation
equations, the physical domain is mapped into the
computational domain [45]:
N
X
x
xi Ui n;g

and

N
X

i1

yi Ui n;g

39

i1

where xi and yi are the coordinates of node i in the

physical domain, N is the number of grid points, and
Ui n;g : i 1;2;3; . . . ;N are the interpolation or shape
functions. These are given for node i:
1
Ui n;g 1 nni 1 ggi
4

40

Using the chain rule, the rst-order, and secondorder derivatives of a function are given as:


ux
u
J11 n
41
uy
ug
8
9
8
9

< uxx =
< unn =
u
uyy
J31 ugg
 J31 J2 J11 n
42
ug
:
;
:
;
2uyx
2ung
where ni and gi are the coordinates of node i in the ng
plane, and J1, J2, and J3 are the Jacobian matrices.
These are expressed as follows:
2
3
xnn ynn


xn y n
6
7
J1
; J2 4 xgg ygg 5;
xg yg
xng yng
2 2
3
2
yn
x n yn
xn
6 2
7
6
7
y2g
x g yg
J3 6 xg
43
7
4
5
1
xn yg xg yn
xn xg yn yg
2
5.2. Curvilinear quadrilateral plates
Furthermore, let the eld of interest be a curvilinear
quadrilateral domain in the Cartesian xy plane, as
shown in Fig. 6(a). The geometry of this plate can be
mapped into a square region in the natural ng plane,
as shown in Fig. 6(b). In this approach, the irregular
physical domain is transformed into a regular domain
in a curvilinear coordinate system and, accordingly, the
governing equation and boundary conditions are transformed into relevant forms in the curvilinear coordinate system. Then, all computations are based on the
computational domain. Since the computational
domain is regular, the application of the dierential
quadrature method to irregular plates in the computational space is exactly the same as the application of
DQ method to regular plates in the physical domain.
In this case, interpolation or shape functions are given
for grid i as:
1
1 nni 1 ggi  1 nni ggi ;
4
for i 1;3;5;7

Ui n;g

44a

1
1  g2 1 nni ; for i 4 and 8 44b
2
1
Ui n;g 1  n2 1 ggi ; for i 2 and 6
44c
2
Thus, the following equations are used for the coordinate transformation:
Ui n;g

8
X
i1

xi Ui n;g

and

8
X
i1

yi Ui n;g

45

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

O

Bert and Malik give detailed information about

irregular element for DQ [3]. In addition to this, more
detailed formulation on the method of DQ for straightsided quadrilateral domain can also be found in the
paper by Liew and Han [51]. Details of the transformation process of the DQ method as applied to straightsided quadrilateral and curvilinear domains are not
elaborated here but can be found elsewhere in the
literature [3,45,49,51]. In the numerical applications,
simply supported (SS) and clamped (C) boundary conditions are considered. At any point of either type of
support, the deection is zero.
U 0

46

For the simply supported edge, the normal moment

must be zero,
@2U
@2U
sin2 a mcos2 a
2
@X
@Y 2
2
@ U
0
21  mcosa sina
@X @Y

cos2 a msin2 a

47

and at the clamped edge, there is no rotation normal to

the edge, thus:
cosa

@U
@U
sina
0
@X
@Y

48

where a is the angle between the normal to the plate

boundary and the x-axis. In the DQ form, Eqs. (46)
(48) are given as:
Ui 0

49

cos2 a msin2 a

Nn
X

Ng
X

Bnmj Uj sin2 a mcos2 a

j1

j1

21  mcosa sina

Nn
X
j1

cosa

Nn
X
j1

Anmj sina

Ng
X

Bgnj Uj

Anmj

Ng
X

Agnj Uj

50

j1

Agnj Uj 0

51

j1

For the straight-sided quadrilateral and curvilinear

domains, the sampling points are taken as


 


 
1
i1
1
j1
ni 1  cos
p ; gj 1  cos
p
2
Nn  1
2
Ng  1
i 1;2;.. .;Nn and j 1;2;.. .;Ng

(ng) is given as:

Nn
X

Dnik Ukj 2k2

k1

Nn
X

Bnjm

Ng
X

and

Bgik Ukm k4

m1

k1

Nn
Hx X
a2
Bn Ukj ;
D k1 ik

Ng
X

Dgjk Uik

k1

for i 1; 2; . . . ;Nn

j 1; 2; . . . ;Ng

52

The considered boundary conditions are incorporated into Eq. (52) similar to the other examples. The
buckling loads of a symmetric trapezoidal plate are
presented in Table 8 with three dierent boundary conditions. One of the most important study of this problem is that of Wang et al. [49]. So, these results are
chosen to compare the accuracy of HDQ results. It is
shown that in this table, HDQ results using 11  11
grid points are more accurate than those of the DQ.
The buckling load by Civalek [11] using the FEM
method is also presented in Table 8 for comparison.
Fifteen grid points are used in each direction for FEM.
A reasonably converged solution may be achieved for
11 grids by HDQ. In addition to this, a reasonably
converged solution may be obtained for 15 grid points
using FEM.
5.2.2. Free vibration analysis of eccentric sectorial plate
Consider free vibration analysis of eccentric sectorial
plate as shown in Fig. 8. The governing dierential
equations of free vibration of a thin plate are given in a
non-dimensional form as:
4
@4U
@4U
2
4@ U

2k

k
X2 U
@X 4
@X 2 @Y 2
@Y 4

53

where U is the dimensionless mode function of the

vibration, X is the dimensionless frequency and is given
as X x2 a4 qh=D, X x=a, Y y=b are the dimensionless coordinates, a and b are the dimensions of the
plate as parallel to x-axis and y-axis, k a=b is the
ratio of the plate edge length or aspect ratio, q is
the mass density of using material for plate, h is the
uniform plate thickness, x is the natural frequency,
and D denotes the exural rigidity of plates and is
given as D Eh3 =121  m2 , m is the Poisson ratio, E is
the modulus of elasticity of the plate material. Eq. (53)
can be given by applying the DQM as:
Nn
X

Dnik Ukj 2k2

k1

5.2.1. Buckling of trapezoidal plate

Let us consider a trapezoidal plate as shown in
Fig. 7. Since the geometry of this plate can be mapped
into a rectangular plate in the natural ng plane, we
can use the governing equation for buckling of thin
plates under uniform compressive force as given in
Eq. (22). Its DQ form in the computational domain

183

k4

Nn
X
k1

Ng
X

Bnik

Ng
X

Bgjm Ukm

m1

Dgjk Uik X2 Uij ;

for i 1;2; . . . ;Nn

k1

and

j 1;2; . . . ;Ng

54

where Dnik Dgjk Bnik Bgjm represent the weighting coecients of the fourth- and second-order derivatives along

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

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184

n- and g-directions for the dierential quadrature

approximation. For the simply supported all over the
four edges plate 15  15 grid points can produce quite
accurate results. It is concluded that the HDQ solution
converge at lesser grid points when compared with the
DQ solution. The polar nite dierences (FD) results
of the vibration for rst two frequencies are also given
in Table 9 for the purpose of comparison. For the FD
solution, 19  19 grid size is used. The required time on
a Pentium-II with 64 MB RAM is less than 1 s for
HDQ and DQ. But, the required computing time is 3 s
for the FD solution. It should be noted that the HDQ
solution converges at a smaller grid size as compared
to the DQ and FD solution.

observed from Fig. 10, the obtained fundamental frequencies found by using 11 uniformly spaced grid
points are very accurate.
The HDQ method was found to require less than
two seconds of CPU time for almost all cases on a
standard personal computer (Pentium-II processor having 64 MB RAM). An attractive advantage of the
HDQ method is that it can produce acceptable accuracy of the numerical results with very few grid points
in the solution domain and therefore can be very useful
for rapid evaluation in engineering design.

5.3. Free vibration analysis of annular plates

In the past 10 years, many researchers have been

interested in various types of DQ methods. These
include the DQ method, generalized dierential quadrature (GDQ), dierential quadrature element (DQE)
method, and the HDQ. Harmonic dierential quadrature was recently proposed and there are only a few
papers on this novel kind of dierential quadrature. In
the present study, the HDQ method was introduced to
study the buckling analysis of thin, isotropic plates
under various support conditions. The problem of the
buckling of elastic columns and plates under uniform
axial compression, and vibration of plates has been
successfully solved using the HDQ and DQ approaches. The conventional small deection theory is used
in the study with the governing dierential equations
transformed into a typical eigenvalue equation by the
HDQ formulation. The method of HDQ that was used
in the paper proposes a very simple algebraic formula
to determine the connection weighting coecients
required by dierential quadrature approximation
without restricting the choice of mesh grids. The
known boundary conditions are easily incorporated in
the HDQ as well as in the other type of DQ. A good
comparative accuracy of DQ and HDQ methods for
static and vibration analysis of plates is presented by
Liew et al. [50,56]. More detailed information can be
found in these references. The discretizing and programming procedures are straightforward and easy.
Several test examples for dierent plate shapes have
been selected to demonstrate the convergence properties, accuracy and simplicity in numerical implementation of the HDQ procedures. This has veried the
accuracy and applicability of the HDQ method to the
class of problem considered in this study. Furthermore,
in the numerical examples in the scope of the study, the
results obtained with HDQ method are more accurate
than the values calculated by using nite elements and
nite dierences and a coarser grid is used. But it is
impossible to state that the HDQ method is superior to
nite elements in all cases or problems by only depending on this study. Each method has its own advantages

As the last example, we solve the free vibration of

simply supported circular plates with a concentric circular hole, the so-called annular plates (Fig. 9). The
inner and outer radii of an annular plate are denoted
by b and a, respectively. The governing dierential
equation of circular annular plates undergoing axisymmetric free vibration and its DQ form is given by:
2
1
1
URRR  2 URR 3 UR  W2 U 0 55
R
R
R
N
N
N
N
X
2 X
1 X
1 X
Dij Uj
Cij Uj  2
Bij Uj 3
Aij Uj
Ri j1
Ri j1
Ri j1
j1

URRRR

 W2 Ui 0; i 1;2; . . . ; N  2

56

where R r=a, W is the non-dimensional frequency

p
and is given by W xa2 qh=D, D is the exural rigidity of the annular plate, h is the thickness, q is the density of the plate material, and x is the circular
frequency. Considering the simply supported annular
plate, that is,
U 0

at R 1

57

and
@2U
m @U
at R 1
58

@R2 R @R
Notice that we only keep the discretized equations
for i 1 to (N2) in Eq. (56) because there are two
boundary conditions at R 1 point. The non-dimensional fundamental frequencies of annular plates with
simply supported boundary conditions obtained by
HDQ and DQ are shown in Fig. 10 for N 11. This
gure demonstrates the inuence of non-dimensional
radial coordinate b/a on the non-dimensional fundamental frequencies. The non-dimensional fundamental
frequency given by Leissa [16] is also presented in this
gure for comparison. It is shown that the results compare very well with the solution of Leissa [16]. As

6. Concluding remarks

 . Civalek / Engineering Structures 26 (2004) 171186

O

and application areas. Finite element method is still an

eective way especially in systems with complex
geometry and load conditions or applications with
non-linear behavior and has many successful applications.

Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the referees whose thorough reviews and precise comments were very helpful
in the revision of the original manuscript of the present
paper. The author also would like to express his
appreciation to Mr. Ali K. Baltacioglu for his assistance during the computer programming.

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