Vibration of shear-deformable laminated plate structures by the finite strip method

Abstract

Free vibration of prismatic plate structures of laminated composite material and having diaphragm end supports is considered using the finite strip method. Description is given of the development of stiffness and mass matrices for both out-of-plane and in-plane deformation of a family of strip models. The former deformation is based on first-order shear deformation plate theory, rather than classical plate theory. Frequency calculations are made using full sets of structure equations and using reduced sets obtained from an economisation procedure. Presented results demonstrate the good convergence characteristics of the finite strip approach and reveal the relative efficiency of particular economisation schemes. Comparison made with results based on the use of classical plate theory in deriving out-of-plane strip properties shows that the effects of through-thickness shear and rotary inertia on a natural frequency are heavily dependent upon the nature of the associated mode shape.