Dynamics of laminated composite plates with a higher order theory and finite element discretization

A simple isoparametric finite element formulation based on a higher-order displacement model for dynamic analysis of multi-layer symmetric composite plates is presented with an explicit time marching scheme. As is well-known, the Kirchhoff plate theory is inadequate to describe the propagation of waves in plates. The first-order shear deformable Mindlin plate theory hitherto considered was adequate for determining responses to dynamic loads. The present higher-order theory which is more accurate than the Mindlin theory is applied, herein, for the evaluation of plate response to different types of dynamic loads. A special mass lumping scheme is adopted which conserves the total mass of the element and includes the effects due to rotary inertia terms. The parametric effects of the time step, finite element mesh, lamination scheme and orthotropy on the transient response are investigated. Several numerical examples are presented and compared with results from other sources