Experimental and Numerical Studies on Free Vibration of Natural Fiber Laminated Composite Plates

Abstract

The present work deals with experimental and numerical investigations on free vibration behavior of woven fabric natural fiber laminated composite plates. All the composite laminates are prepared by hand lay-up technique. Series of experiments is conducted to obtain natural frequencies of vibration of woven fiber Jute/Epoxy, Sisal/Epoxy and Jute-Banana-Sisal/Epoxy laminated composite plates using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analyzer with PULSE software. The experimental results are compared with numerical results by using ANSYS 17.2 for accuracy of the study. Parametric study is carried out for effects of number of layers of laminate, lamination sequences and different natural fiber type on fundamental natural frequency of natural fiber laminated composite plates under different boundary conditions. Four different boundary conditions are consider on the present study such as four sides clamped, four sides simply supported, two sides free and two opposite sides clamped and cantilever. The experimental results match well with their numerical counterparts. The numerical and experimental results show that hybrid laminated plate give the higher natural frequency than single jute and sisal laminated plate for all the boundary conditions. The symmetry cross ply laminated plate gives more natural frequency as compare to angle ply. The fundamental natural frequency of natural fiber laminated composite plate increases with increasing the number of layers of laminate under all boundary conditions.