Department of Aerospace Engineering @ METU

AEE305 Numerical Methods

2023-2024 Fall
HW#5

Elastic deflection of a thin steel plate under pressure loading is governed by

∇2 (D∇2 z) = −p

where p is the pressure load, D is the bending stiffness of the steel plate given by
Eh3
D=
12(1 − ν 2 )
and E = 2E11 P a is the modulus of elasticity, ν = 0.3 is Poisson’s ratio, h = 2cm is the plate
thickness.
Numerical solutions may be obtained by intruducing a new variable u(x, y) such that

D∇2 z = u

∇2 u = −p

The boundary conditions for a fixed plate are given as u = 0 and z = 0.

Solve for the deflection of a steel plate of 2x1m size, z, subjected to 1 bar pressure using the
classical 2nd order accurate FDE (5-point formula).

• Implement the following iterative solution methods in the incomplete Matlab code:
◦ point Jacobi iteration,
◦ Gauss-Seidel (GS) iteration,
◦ Successive Over Relaxation (SOR). (Determine the best ω value)
Assumeqthat the iterative solutions converge when the L2 norm of the residual,
RL2 = ( imax
P Pjmax k+1 k 2
i=1 j=1 (ui,j − ui,j ) ), goes down by more than 3 orders of magnitude.

• Plot the variation of RL2 wrt the iteration count for all the solution methods on the same
graph, and discuss their convergence rates.
• Plot the isolines of the deflected plate surface.
• Plot the midplane deflections.
• Obtain solutions on various mesh resolutions.
• Design an aluminum skin panel for a transonic aircraft.
• For a bonus,
◦ solve the system of equations by using line iterative methods
⃗ = 0 at the boundaries
◦ solve for a clamped plate where ∇z
(Zero deflection at the boundaries may be imposed by a large spring force
p = 1E12z exerted along the boundary.)