Bending Analysis of Laminated Composite Plates with Arbitrary Boundary Conditions

It is well known that for laminated composite plates a Levy-type solution exists only for cross-ply and antisymmetric angle-ply laminates. Numerous investigators have used the Levy method to solve the governing equations of various equivalent single-layer plate theories. It is the intension of the present study to introduce a method for analytical solutions of laminated composite plates with arbitrary lamination and boundary conditions subjected to transverse loads. The method is based on separation of spatial variables of displacement field components. Within the displacement field of a first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), a laminated plate theory is developed. Two systems of coupled ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients are obtained by using the principle of minimum total potential energy. Since the procedure used is simple and straightforward it can, therefore, be adopted in developing higher-order shear deformation and layerwise laminated plate theories. The obtained equations are solved analytically using the state-space approach. The results obtained from the present method are compared with the Levy-type solutions of cross-ply and antisymmetric angle-ply laminates with various admissible boundary conditions to verify the validity and accuracy of the present theory. Also for other laminations and boundary conditions that there exist no Levy-type solutions the present results may be compared with those obtained from finite element method. It is seen that the present results have excellent agreements with those obtained by Levy-type method.