FREE VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF CROSS-PLY LAMINATED COMPOSITE BEAMS BY MIXED FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION

In this study, a mixed-finite element method for free vibration analysis of cross-ply laminated composite beams is presented based on the Euler-Bernoulli Beam Theory and Timoshenko Beam Theory. The Gateaux differential approach is employed to construct the functionals of laminated beams using the variational method. By using these functionals in the mixed-type finite element method, two beam elements CLBT4 and FSDT8 are derived for the Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theories, respectively. The CLBT4 element has four degrees of freedom (DOFs), containing the vertical displacement and bending moment as unknowns at the nodes, whereas the FSDT8 element has eight DOFs, containing the vertical displacement, bending moment, shear force and rotation as unknowns. A computer program is developed to execute the analyses for the present study. The numerical results of free vibration analyses obtained for different boundary conditions are presented and compared with results available in the literature, which indicates the reliability of the present approach.