Elastic linear and non-linear analysis of fiber-reinforced symmetrically laminated sector Mindlin plate

Geometrically linear and non-linear elastic analyses of thick composite sector plates are presented. The plates are constructed of layers with orthotropic properties and different fiber orientations. The plate itself can be cut out from a fiber-reinforced laminated rectangular plate or else it may be so constructed that the fibers are in the radial and circumferential directions. In this paper the former is considered. The Dynamic relaxation (DR) numerical method together with the finite difference discretization technique are used to solve the plate non-linear field equations and a Matlab program is developed to generate the numerical results. The finite element model of the plate is also generated and solved using Ansys 5.7 code. Although deflections, stress resultants and stress couples are obtained but, due to brevity, only the dimensionless deflections along the radial line of symmetry are presented. The comparison of the DR and FE results are in most cases within 3-5% from one another. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.