Free vibration analysis of angle-ply laminated beams with general boundary conditions

In this study, vibration analysis of angle-ply laminated beams subjected to different sets of boundary conditions is investigated. The analysis is based on a three-degrees-of-freedom shear deformable beam theory. The governing equations are obtained by means of Hamilton's principle. Six different combinations of free, clamped, and simply supported edge boundary conditions are considered. The free vibration frequencies are obtained by applying the Ritz method where the three displacement components are expressed in a series of simple algebraic polynomials. The numerical results obtained for different lay-ups are presented and compared with that available in the literature.