Experimental investigation of the dynamic response of graphite-epoxy composite laminates under compression

A boundary continuous displacement based Fourier series solution to the boundaryvalue problem of free vibration of an arbitrarily laminated thin rectangular plate is presented. This powerful approach is employed to solve a system of three highly coupled partial differential equations arising from the Kirchhoff hypothesis as applied to an anisotropic laminate, with the SS2-type simply supported boundary conditions prescribed at all four edges. The accuracy of the computed eigenvalues (natural frequencies) is ascertained by studying the convergence characteristics of the lowest seven natural frequencies, and also by comparison with the computed degenerate FEM (finite element methods) results. Other important numerical results presented include variation of the response quantities of interest with geometric and material parameters, such as fiber orientation angle and longitudinal-to-transverse modulus ratio.