Large amplitude free vibration of shear deformable laminated composite annular sector plates by a sector p-element

A sector p-element is presented for the large amplitude free vibration analysis of laminated composite annular sector plates. The effects of out-of-plane shear deformations, rotary inertia, and geometric non-linearity are taken into account. The shape functions are derived from the shifted Legendre orthogonal polynomials. The element stiffness and mass matrices are integrated analytically with the aid of symbolic computing. The method consists of modeling the annular sector plate as one element. The accuracy of the solution is improved simply by increasing the polynomial order. The time-dependent coefficients are described by a truncated Fourier series. The equations of free motion are obtained using the harmonic balance method and solved by the linearized updated mode method. Results for the linear and non-linear frequencies of clamped laminated composite annular sector plates are obtained. The case of a clamped isotropic annular sector plate is also shown. The linear frequencies are found to converge rapidly downwards as the polynomial order is increased. Comparisons of the linear frequencies with published results show excellent agreement. The effects of sector angle, inner-to-outer radius ratio, thickness-to-outer radius ratio, moduli ratio, number of plies, and layup sequence on the backbone curves are also investigated. It is shown that the hardening behavior increases or decreases depending on geometric and lamination parameters.