An energy approximation to the solution of a corner-supported rectangular slab Available to Purchase

The Rayleigh-Ritz method is used to obtain an approximate solution to the problem of the de flexion of a rectangular flat slab supported only at its four corners and loaded with either an arbitrarily positioned point load or uniformly distributed load. The assumed functional approximation does not completely satisfy the stress-free boundary condition, yet despite this experimental results show reasonable agreement with the predicted values in the case of single concentrated loads on two steel plates.