Free vibration of antisymmetric,angle-ply laminated plates including transverse shear deformation by the finite element method

A finite element formulation of the equations governing the laminated anisotropic plate theory of Yang, Norris and Stavsky, is presented. The theory is a generalization of Mindlin's theory for isotropic plates to laminated anisotropic plates and includes shear deformation and rotary inertia effects. Finite element solutions are presented for rectangular plates of antisymmetric angle-ply laminates whose material properties are typical of a highly anisotropic composite material. Two sets of material properties that are typical of high modulus fiber-reinforced composites are used to show the parametric effects of plate aspect ratio, length-to-thickness ratio, number of layers and lamination angle. The numerical results are compared with the closed form results of Bert and Chen. As a special case, numerical results are presented for thick isotropic plates, and are compared with those for 3-D linear elasticity theory and Mindlin's thick plate theory.