Free vibration analysis of stiffened laminated plates using layered finite element method

The free vibration analysis of stiffened laminated composite plates has been performed using the layered (zigzag) finite element method based on the first order shear deformation theory. The layers of the laminated plate is modeled using nine-node isoparametric degenerated flat shell element. The stiffeners are modeled as three-node isoparametric beam elements based on Timoshenko beam theory. Bilinear in-plane displacement constraints are used to maintain the inter-layer continuity. A special lumping technique is used in deriving the lumped mass matrices. The natural frequencies are extracted using the subspace iteration method. Numerical results are presented for unstiffened laminated plates, stiffened isotropic plates, stiffened symmetric angle-ply laminates, stiffened skew-symmetric angle-ply laminates and stiffened skew-symmetric cross-ply laminates. The effects of fiber orientations (ply angles), number of layers, stiffener depths and degrees of orthotropy are examined.