Relaxed and Bonded Interfacial Conditions for the Axial Interaction of a Flexible Plate with a Transversely Isotropic Half-Space

In this paper, the effect of boundary conditions on the axial interaction of a flexible circular plate with a homogeneous transversely isotropic half-space is studied. The boundary conditions at the interface of the two media are assumed to be either frictionless or fully bonded. By developing suitable ring load Green’s functions for both interacting media, the interaction problem is reduced to first kind Fredholm integral equations. By means of adaptive gradient elements, the interfacial integral equations are solved numerically for the unknown axial and radial traction components at the interface. In addition to the comparison of interfacial conditions effect, several numerical displays are given to survey the effect material anisotropy and plate flexibility on the axial load transfer process.