Pedagogically treating topics as having several ways to be addressed: Harmonically varying states of free-edge circular plates.

The paper is mainly concerned with the training of students by treating exercises as having several ways to be addressed. The topic considered herein focuses on the vibrations of a free edge axisymmetric homogeneous circular thin plate excited by a time-periodic source. This topic is prepared using the three analytic methods available (but these are not fully used analytically in the literature) to show the different aspects of the problem: modal expansion, integral formulation, and exact general solution, against which the other models are tested. Several results are provided when the source is localized at the center of the plate to validate the methods with each other, and these are discussed before concluding.