Shear Deformation in Heterogeneous Anisotropic Plates

Abstract

A bending theory for anisotropic laminated plates developed by Yang, Norris, and Stavsky is investigated. The theory includes shear deformation and rotary inertia in the same manner as Mindlin’s theory for isotropic homogeneous plates. The governing equations reveal that unsymmetrically laminated plates display the same bending-extensional coupling phenomenon found in classical laminated plate theory based on the Kirchhoff assumptions. Solutions are presented for bending under transverse load and for flexural vibration frequencies of symmetric and nonsymmetric lamninates. Good agreement is observed in numerical results for plate bending as compared to exact solutions obtained from classical elasticity theory. For certain fiber-reinforced composite materials, radical departure from classical laminated plate theory is indicated.