A study of a microstructure-dependent composite laminated Timoshenko beam using a modified couple stress theory and a meshless method

A modified couple stress theory and a meshless method are used to study the bending of simply supported laminated composite beams subjected to transverse loads. The Timoshenko beam kinematics are employed to model the beam, by a modified couple stress theory. The governing equations for the Timoshenko beam are solved numerically using a meshless method based on collocation with radial basis functions. The numerical method is easy to implement and provides accurate results that are in excellent agreement with the analytical solutions. Moreover, the results show that the present model can capture the effects of the microstructure. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.