Frequency-dependent vibration analysis of symmetric cross-ply laminated plate of Levy-type by spectral element and finite strip procedures

This research describes spectral finite element formulation for vibration analysis of rectangular symmetric cross-ply laminated composite plates of Levy-type based on classical lamination plate theory (CLPT). Formulation based on SFEM includes partial differential equations of motion, spectral displacement field, dynamic shape functions, and spectral element stiffness matrix (SESM). In this paper, vibration analysis of composite plate is investigated in two sections: free vibrations and forced vibrations. In free vibrations, natural frequencies are calculated for different Young’s moduli ratios and boundary conditions. In forced vibrations, plate vibrations are investigated under high-frequency concentrated impulsive loads. The resulting responses due to spectral element formulation are compared with those of (time-domain) finite element and analytical formulations, whenever available. The results demonstrate the superiority of SFEM with respect to FEM, in reducing computational burden, simultaneously increasing numerical accuracy, specifically for excitations of high-frequency content. By reducing the time duration of impulsive loads, and consequently increasing the modal contribution of higher modes in the transient response of plate, the accuracy of FEM responses decreases substantially accompanied with a high volume of computations, while the accuracy of the SFEM response results is very high and simultaneously, with a low computational burden. Practically, SFEM follows very closely exact analytical solutions.