NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF RECTANGULAR LAMINATED DECKS PLATES USING LARGE DEFLECTION THEORY

Dynamic Relaxation DR method is presented for the geometrically
nonlinear laterally loaded rectangular laminated plates The analysis uses the
Mindlin plate theory which accounts for transverse shear deformation A
computer program has been compiled The convergence and accuracy of the DR
solutions for elastic large deflection response are established by comparison
with various exact and approximate solutions New numerical results are
generated for uniformly loaded square laminated plates which serve to quantify
the effects of shear deformation length to thickness ratio number of layers
material anisotropy and fiber orientation
It was found that linear analysis seriously over predicts deflection of plates
The shear deflection depends greatly on a number of factors such as length to
thickness ratio degree of anisotropy and number of layers As the degree of
anisotropy increases the plate becomes stiffer and when it is greater than a
critical value the deflection becomes virtually independent on the degree of
anisotropy It was also found that deflection of plates depends on the angle of
orientation of individual plies and the size of load applied