Vibration of symmetrically laminated thick super elliptical plates

This paper reports a free vibration analysis of thick plates with rounded c orners subject to a free, simply-supported or clamped boundary condition. T he plate perimeter is defined by a super elliptic function with a power def ining the shape ranging from an ellipse to a rectangle. To incorporate tran sverse shear deformation, the Reddy third-order plate theory is employed. T he energy integrals incorporating shear deformation and rotary inertia are formulated and the p-Ritz procedures are used to derive the governing eigen value equation. Numerical examples for plates with different shapes and bou ndary conditions are solved and their frequency parameters, where possible, are compared with known results. Parametric studies are carried out to sho w the sensitivities of frequency parameters by varying the geometry, fibre stacking sequence, and boundary condition. (C) 1999 Academic Press.