Free vibration analysis of rectangular composite laminates using a layerwise cubic B-spline finite strip method

A layerwise B-kk-spline finite strip method (FSM) is developed for free vibration analysis of laminated plates. The validity of the B-33 FSM has been verified by numerical applications to isotropic and composite laminates. Numerical studies show that conventional selective integration technique as used in finite element method (FEM) fails to prevent locking in the B-33-s FSM. It is found that shear-locking behaviour can be successfully eliminated from the B-33-s FSM by using a selective integration scheme such that one-point Gauss integration is used per spline section in the longitudinal direction of the strip whilst the conventional selective integration scheme is in the crosswise direction. With this approach, the introduction of an extra constraint on transverse deflection is needed at both ends of the strip. The present LW B-33-s FSM has the capability to yield accurate predictions of the natural frequencies for thin to thick isotropic and laminated composite plates with various boundary conditions, especially for thick composite laminates. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.