Buckling and free vibration analysis of piezoelectric laminated composite plates using various plate deformation theories

A finite strip method was developed for buckling and free vibration analysis of piezoelectric laminated composite plates based on various plate theories such as Zigzag, Refined plate and other higher order shear deformation theory by variation of transverse shear strains through plate thickness in the form of parabolic, sine and exponential. The plate edge conditions are considered to be simply supported and the polynomial shape functions are used to evaluate the in-plane and out-of-plane deflection and rotation of the normal cross section of plates in transverse direction. Numerical results were obtained based on various shear deformation plate theories to verify the proposed method. The effects of length to thickness ratio and fiber orientation of cross-ply and angle-ply laminate were presented. Also, the effect of different electrical conditions on the critical buckling load under in-plane forces and strains is investigated and electrical buckling load and natural frequency of piezoelectric laminate composite plates are calculated through numerical examples. In addition, the new results on the effect of piezoelectric layers thickness, placement of piezoelectric layers and also the effect of length to thickness ratio in the interaction of biaxial in-plane loading on critical buckling load were studied.