Identification of partial differential equations in structural mechanics theory through k-space analysis and design

This paper presents a method to identify wave equations’ parameters using wave dispersion characteristics (k-space) on two-dimensional domains. The proposed approach uses the minimization of the difference of an analytic formulation of the dispersion relation to wavenumbers calculated from solution fields. The implementation of partial differential equations (PDE) resolution on finite element software is explained and tested with analytic solutions in order to generate the test solution fields for the identification process. The coefficient identification is tested on solution fields generated by finite element solver for some 2nd- and 4th-order equations. In particular the test cases are the equations at different frequencies of deflection of isotropic and orthotropic membrane, flexion of isotropic and orthotropic plate and an original model of orthotropic plate equivalent to a bi-directional ribbed plate. In the limits of the spatial sampling rate and the domain size, the process allows an accurate retrieval of the wave equation parameters.