Free vibration of composite laminated plates subjected to temperature changes

A vibration analysis of laminated composite plates subjected to temperature changes is performed. In the present study, the first-order shear deformation theory of a plate is employed. To account for the thermal effect in vibration analysis, the strains are augmented with the nonlinear terms of the von Karman strains. The resulting finite element formulation leads to general nonlinear and coupled simultaneous equations with the three displacements u, v, w and the two rotations phi(x), phi(y) being the degrees of freedom. The present formulation is then employed to calculate the frequencies of the vibration of a symmetric crossply laminated plate to show some of the features pertaining to the vibration behaviors of laminates under a uniform temperature change. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd