Linear and Nonlinear Analysis of Laminated Plates using Small and Large Deflection Theory

Master's Thesis from the year 2003 in the subject Engineering - Mechanical Engineering, grade: 5.0, Nile Valley University, course: BSc, language: English, abstract: The objective of this book is to present a complete and up to date treatment of rectangular laminated plates with uniform cross sections. Dynamic Relaxation (DR) method is presented for the geometrically linear and nonlinear laterally loaded, rectangular laminated plates. The analysis uses the Mindlin plate theory which accounts for transverse shear deformation. A computer program has been compiled. The convergence and accuracy of the DR solutions for elastic small and large deflection response are established by comparison with various exact and approximate solutions.

New numerical results are generated for uniformly loaded square laminated plates which serve to quantify the effects of shear deformation, material anisotropy, fiber orientation, and coupling between bending and stretching. It was found that linear analysis seriously over-predicts deflections of plates. The shear deflection depends greatly on a number of factors such as length/ thickness ratio, degree of anisotropy and number of layers. It was also found that coupling between bending and stretching can increase or decrease the bending stiffness of a laminate depending on whether it is positive or negative.