On the vibration of a thin rectangular plate carrying a moving oscillator

A great number of studies on the vibration of plates subjected to moving loads are available, which are gained by moving force and moving mass modeling frameworks. As a result, evaluating the reliability of the approximate simulation of a moving oscillator problem through moving force/mass would be of interest to engineering applications. Therefore, in this article, transverse vibration of a thin rectangular plate under a traveling mass-spring-damper system is revealed using the eigenfunction expansion method. Both moving force and moving mass modeling approaches are compared with the moving oscillator and various plate fixity cases, and load trajectories are involved to present benchmark solutions. The spring stiffness range, in which the plate response agrees closely with the corresponding moving force/mass analysis, is recommended. The results elucidate that the moving mass can be considerably unrealistic in predicting the contact force of an undamped oscillator. Moreover, errors in the orbiting force/mass simplification of the orbiting oscillator in predicting the resonant conditions of the plate vibration are not negligible.