A DQ large deformation analysis of composite plates on nonlinear elastic foundations

In this paper an attempt is made to explore the applicability and accuracy of a recently developed differential quadrature (DQ) methodology, for nonlinear analysis of composite plates. For this purpose, the large deformation analyses of symmetric and antisymmetric cross ply, thin, elastic rectangular laminated plates rested on nonlinear elastic foundations are investigated. Thin plate theory in conjunction with Green’s strain and von Karman assumptions is used for modeling the nonlinear behavior of the plates. The nonlinear governing equations are discretized at whole domain grid points and boundary conditions are implemented exactly at boundary grid points. DQ solutions based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) are also obtained and comparative studies are made between two approaches for different cases. Convergence of the methodology is demonstrated and the results are compared with existing solutions of other methods. It is shown that accurate results are obtained even when using only small number of grid points.