Large deflection of clamped circular plate and accuracy of its approximate analytical solutions

A different set of governing equations on the large deflection of plates are derived by the principle of virtual work (PVW), which also leads to a different set of boundary conditions. Boundary conditions play an important role in determining the computation accuracy of the large deflection of plates. Our boundary conditions are shown to be more appropriate by analyzing their difference with the previous ones. The accuracy of approximate analytical solutions is important to the bulge/blister tests and the application of various sensors with the plate structure. Different approximate analytical solutions are presented and their accuracies are evaluated by comparing them with the numerical results. The error sources are also analyzed. A new approximate analytical solution is proposed and shown to have a better approximation. The approximate analytical solution offers a much simpler and more direct framework to study the plate-membrane transition behavior of deflection as compared with the previous approaches of complex numerical integration.