Theoretical and experimental dynamic analysis of fiber reinforced composite beams

The composite materials are well known by their excellent combination of high structural stiffness and lowweight. Their inherent anisotropy allows the designer to tailor the material in order to achieve the desired performance requirements. Thus, it is of fundamental importance to develop tools that allow the designer to obtain optimized designs considering th e structural requirements, functional characteristics and restrictions imposed by the production process. Within these requirements, this work considers the dynamic behavior of components manufactured from fiber reinforced composite materials. some beams were made using the hand -lay up process followed by a molding under pressure and heating. Experimental dynamic tests were carried out using specimens with different fiber orientations and stacking sequences. From the results, the influence of the fibers orientations as well as the stacking sequences on the natural frequencies and modal damping were investigated. Also, these experiments were used to validate the theoretical model and the results obtained from the finite element analysis.