Random Vibration of Laminated FRP Plates with Material Nonlinearity Using High-Order Shear Theory

Abstract

The nonlinear response of laminated fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) plates modeled with finite elements and excited by stochastic loading is studied. FRPs are being used widely for structural applications in recent years due to their outstanding mechanical properties. Most FRP materials have strong anisotropic properties and exhibit significant nonlinearity in the shear stress-strain law. A high-order shear theory is used to account for the variation of strains through the thickness, since Kirchhoff and Mindlin plate theories are usually inadequate for modeling laminated FRP plates of reasonable thickness. Nonlinear random vibration analysis is performed using the method of equivalent linearization to account for material nonlinearity. A formulation for deterministic dynamic analysis is also developed and performed to verify the accuracy of the approximate nonlinear random vibration method. The random vibration analysis is found to be sufficiently accurate and is considerably more cost-effective than the use of deterministic simulations.