Vibration analysis of laminated composite plates with damage using the perturbation method

The present work focuses on vibration characteristics of damaged laminated composite plates. Damage is considered as a local reduction of anisotropic plate stiffness, and three damage factors (representing the damage severity, damage anisotropy, and damage location/area, respectively) are defined to describe damage status in the laminated composite plates. The analytical solutions are obtained by the perturbation method. A numerical analysis is conducted on the vibration of damaged laminated composited plates, and the effect of damage factors on the vibration characteristics is discussed. Results indicate that three damage factors have different influences on the vibration characteristics. Also, the modal curvatures and strain energy show higher damage sensitivity than the natural frequencies and displacement mode shapes. The perturbation-based vibration analysis developed in this study can be used to effectively evaluate the effect of damage on the vibration behavior of anisotropic plates and potentially identify the damage in the laminated plates. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.