VIBRATION OF ARBITRARILY LAMINATED PLATES OF GENERAL TRAPEZOIDAL PLANFORM

This study forms a generalization of the free vibration analysis of th in composite plates. It extends previous analyses and presents benchma rk results for the effects of general lamination and geometric unsymme try parameters on the natural frequencies of general trapezoidal plate s. The Ritz extremum energy principle with kinematically oriented pb-2 shape functions, transformed into efficient numerical procedures, hav e been further exploited to obtained fast-converging and accurate resu lts. Selected new transverse vibration mode shapes are presented to il lustrate the effects of boundary constraints, aspect ratio, and fiber orientation. (C) 1996 Acoustical Society of America.