Buckling and vibration of shear deformable prismatic plate structures by a complex finite strip method (Q1099679)

A finite strip method is presented for the determination of buckling stresses and natural frequencies of vibration of prismatic plate structures assembled from plate flats, which generally are laminates of fibre-reinforced composite material. The finite strip method is of the single-term type, corresponding to the assumption of sinusoidal longitudinal spatial variation of displacement and force quantities. Anisotropic material behaviour and applied in-plane shear stress are accommodated by expressing the strip displacement field in terms of complex quantities. The out-of-plane properties of plate flats are based upon the use of first-order shear deformation plate theory. A family of finite strip models is described and a sub-structuring procedure is utilised to reduce the size of the eigenvalue problem. Presented numerical results reveal the high accuracy and good convergence characteristics of the method, as well as indicating the influence of through-thickness shear effects in a range of circumstances.