Vibration response of laminated plates containing spheroidal inclusions

Abstract

This paper analyzes the vibration response of an N-layered inclusion-reinforced composite plate. The shape of inclusion is modeled as spheroid that enables the composite reinforcement geometrical configurations ranging from sphere to short and continuous fiber. Through the use of the Mori–Tanaka mean-field theory, the effective elastic moduli for each layer of the plate are predicted explicitly. The resulting moduli are able to elucidate the effect of fiber shape on the composite elastic behavior, thus applicable to a much wider range of composite microstructural geometry. From these findings, indispensable information on the requirements for examining the vibration response of the plate is obtained. Finally, numerical results have been given for a simply supported plate made of four layers of E-glass/Epoxy inclusion-reinforced laminates with the inclusion-orientation (0°/90°) s. The results indicate that the inclusion content and aspect ratio affect the plate natural frequency and the elastic moduli as well. Larger aspect ratios generally possess higher natural frequencies. In other words, using short fibers generally results in a lower natural frequency.