A refined hyperbolic shear deformation theory for nonlinear bending and vibration isogeometric analysis of laminated composite plates

In this paper, a refined hyperbolic tangent higher order shear deformation theory is developed. Assuming that the shear function is parameter dependent, the parameters are determined by the inverse method. The refined theory is assessed by using the NURBS based isogeometric analysis for the geometric linear and nonlinear bending and free vibration problems of laminated composite plates. The nonlinearity of the plates is based on the von-Karman strain assumptions. Numerical examples show that the refined hyperbolic tangent shear deformation theory combined with IGA has high accuracy in both linear and geometric nonlinear analysis of laminated composite plates. The effects of plate length-thickness ratio, modulus ratio and stacking sequence on the static bending and free vibration behaviors of laminated plate are also discussed.