Vibration and damping analysis of composite plates using finite elements with layerwise in-plane displacements

Finite element analysis is performed to study the effects of layerwise in-plane displacements on fundamental frequencies and specific damping capacity for composite laminated plates. The cross-ply and angle-ply composite laminated plates with simply-supported boundary conditions are considered. The strain energies of each stress component are computed to quantify the amount of the transverse shear deformations for thin and thick plates. The results show that the length-to-thickness ratios, cross-ply ratios, and fiber orientations have a great influence on the in-plane displacement responses. It is also shown that the layerwise in-plane displacements should be taken into account for the dynamic analysis of thick composite plate. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.