Free vibration of composite plates with mixed boundary conditions based on higher-order shear deformation theory

A global higher-order shear deformation theory is devised to obtain the governing equations of composite plates under dynamic excitation. The time-harmonic solution leads to an eigenvalue problem for the natural frequencies of plates. The eigenvalue problem for rectangular plates is converted to a set of homogenous algebraic equations using differential quadrature method. The formulation of the problem allows direct application of various boundary conditions. Therefore, rectangular plates with mixed boundary conditions are also considered. To show the validity of results, the fundamental natural frequencies of composite plates with different boundary conditions and those of isotropic plates with mixed boundary conditions are compared against the results available in the literature.