Free vibration analysis of stiffened laminated composite plate in a thermal environment

Abstract

In this paper, the free vibration responses of stiffened composite plates in thermal environment are investigated. The flat panel geometry is modelled by using ANSYS parametric design language (APDL) code based on first order shear deformation theory (FSDT)midplane kinematics. Firstly, the validity of the present model is established along with the convergence. Further, several numerical examples have been solved and discussed in detail to bring out the effect of change in temperature, modular ratio and the coefficient of thermal expansion on the free vibration responses of stiffened laminated composite flat panels. It is observed that the values of natural frequencies decrease with temperature.