Efficient finite element model for dynamic analysis of laminated composite beam

An efficient one dimensional finite element model has been presented for the dynamic analysis of composite laminated beams, using the efficient layerwise zigzag theory. To meet the convergence requirements for the weak integral formulation, cubic Hermite interpolation is used for the transverse displacement (w0), and linear interpolation is used for the axial displacement (u0) and shear rotation (x0). Each node of an element has four degrees of freedom. The expressions of variationally consistent inertia, stiffness matrices and the load vector are derived in closed form using exact integration. The formulation is validated by comparing the results with the 2D-FE results for composite symmetric and sandwich beams with various end conditions. The employed finite element model is free of shear locking. The present zigzag finite element results for natural frequencies, mode shapes of cantilever and clamped–clamped beams are obtained with a one-dimensional finite element codes developed in MATLAB. These 1D-FE results for cantilever and clamped beams are compared with the 2D-FE results obtained using ABAQUS to show the accuracy of the developed MATLAB code, for zigzag theory for these boundary conditions. This comparison establishes the accuracy of zigzag finite element analysis for dynamic response under given boundary conditions.