Vibration analyses of laminated composite beams using refined higher-order shear deformation theory

The objective of the paper is to analyze the free vibration of laminated composite beams using a refined higher-order shear deformation theory. The influences of parabolic transverse shear strain, transverse normal strain and Poisson effect are included in the present formulation. The governing differential equations of motion for coupled vibrations of laminated beams are derived using the Hamilton’s principle. In the case of simply supported composite beams, the closed-form solutions for the natural frequency of free harmonic vibration are obtained. The correctness and accuracy of the present theory are validated by comparing the present results with those previously published in the literature and ANSYS solutions.