VIBRATION AND DAMPING ANALYSIS OF LAMINATED COMPOSITE PLATES BY THE FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

The present investigation is concerned with the utilisation of the fin ite element technique for predicting the natural frequencies and the m odal damping factor (also called the loss factor) of anisotropic fibre -reinforced composite laminated plates. The simple definition of the m odal damping factor is defined as the ratio of the strain energy dissi pated per radian of vibration, in the mode of interest, to the total s train energy of the entire laminate at maximum displacement during the same cycle. Results for the vibration and damping analysis of multi-l ayered plates obtained by the present methods are compared with the re sults obtained by other authors and with the results of experiments.