Hygrothermal effects on dynamic instability of a laminated plate under an arbitrary pulsating load

This paper studies the static and dynamic characteristics of composite plates subjected to an arbitrary periodic load in hygrothermal environments. The material properties of composite plates are depended on the temperature and moisture. The governing equations of motion of Mathieu-type are established by using the Galerkin method with reduced eigenfunction transforms. A periodic load is taken to be a combination of axial pulsating load and bending stress in the example problem. The regions of dynamic instability of laminated composite plates are determined by solving the eigenvalue problems based on Bolotin\'s method. The effects of temperature rise and moisture concentration on the dynamic instability of laminated composite plates are investigated and discussed. The influences of various parameters on the instability region and dynamic instability index are also investigated. The numerical results reveal that the influences of hygrothermal effect on the dynamic instability of laminated plates are significant.