Harmonic wave propagation in anisotropic laminated strips

Abstract A numerical method is presented for investigating harmonic wave propagation in arbitrary anisotropic laminated strips. The laminated strip is divided into N plate elements in the thickness. The displacement field within each element is approximated by a linear expansion in the thickness direction and by a series in the width direction. The principle of virtual work is applied to establish the eigenvalue equations, and since the number of the equations is usually much smaller than that obtained by the conventional finite element method, the computing time is much shorter for solution of comparable accuracy. As an example, the dispersion relations are determined for unidirectional carbon/epoxy laminated strips and hybrid composite laminated ones which consist of carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy layers.