Nonlinear vibration of generally laminated anisotropic thick plates

Nonlinear equations of motion of generally laminated anisotropic plates are derived by use of Hamilton's principle. The effects of transverse shear and rotatory inertia are included in the analysis. The equations of motion so obtained readily reduce to those obtained in a recent nonlinear theory of anisotropic plates including transverse shear and rotatory inertia and to the dynamic von Kármán equations of plates. Based on the Galarkin procedure and principle of harmonic balance approximate solutions to the governing equations of generally laminated rectangular plates are formulated for various boundary conditions. Including the effects of transverse shear and rotatory inertia numerical results for the ratio of nonlinear frequency to linear frequency of symmetric angle-ply and cross-ply laminates, unsymmetric angle-ply and cross-ply laminates and an arbitrarily laminated plate are presented graphically for various values of elastic properties, fiber orientation angle, number of layers, thickness-to-span ratio and aspect ratio. Present results are also compared with the existing data.