المجلة الدولية للعلوم والتقنية

Plates are structural members that can be a slab, raft foundation in building. They can be also part of vessels, airplanes or parts of some machines. Plates can be formed by isotropic materials or orthotropic materials or sometimes laminated composite materials. Plates are flat structural elements for which the thickness is much smaller than the other dimensions. Plates may be classified into three groups (1- Thin plate with small deflection 2- Thin plate with large deflection 3- Thick plate ). This paper is devoted to the analysis of orthotropic rectangular plates of continuous boundaries using finite difference method as a tool for such analysis. General forth order differential equation for orthotropic plate equation and its corresponding coefficient patterns of unequal spacing mesh were developed for the plate. A computer program was prepared and used to analyze the plates subjected to different loading with the variation of different Poisson’s ratio and different modulus of elasticity in x&y directions. It was found that the value of deflection decreases when the Poisson’s ratio increases. It was concluded that the Poisson's ratio has a significant effect on bending moment of the plate. More sets of conclusions will be listed by illustrating them in tabulated format and / or graphical diagrams that can be helpful to the engineers that need to benefit from these contribution