Boundary element method for model analysis of 2-D composite structure

The boundary element method is used for the modal analysis of free vibration of 2-D composite structures in this paper. Since the particular solution method is used to treat the terms of body forces (inertial forces) in the equation of motion, only static fundamental solutions are needed in solving the problem. For an isotropic cantilever beam, the numerical results obtained by using the BEM presented in this paper are in good agreement, with, those of using FEM or other BEM, but this BEM can also be used to analyze problems for anisotropic materials. For simply supported composite laminated beams, the comparisons of the numerical reslts obtained by this method with the analytical results obtained by 1-D laminated beam theory indicate that if the ratio of length/thickness is greater than 20, the results of the two methods are in good agreement, but if the ratio of length/thickness is less than 20, big errors will occur for 1-D laminated beam theory.