Accurate dynamic response of laminated composites and sandwich shells using higher order zigzag theory

• This is the first FE of the HOZT in shells incorporating all three radii of curvatures.
• Present 2D HOZT forced vibration results are quite close to 3D elasticity results.
• The cross curvature effect included in formulation help to analyze hypar shells.
• Present model predicts transverse shear stresses accurately than HSDT/FSDT.
• New results of composite/sandwich shells will serve as benchmark for researchers.

Forced vibration response of laminated composite and sandwich shell is studied by using a 2D FE (finite element) model based on higher order zigzag theory (HOZT). This is the first finite element implementation of the HOZT to solve the forced vibration problem of shells incorporating all three radii of curvatures including the effect of cross curvature in the formulation using Sanders' approximations. The proposed finite element model satisfies the inter-laminar shear stress continuity at each layer interface in addition to higher order theory features, hence most suitable to model sandwich shells along with composite shells. The C0 finite element formulation has been done to overcome the problem of C1 continuity associated with the HOZT. The present model can also analyze shells with cross curvature like hypar shells besides normal curvature shells like cylindrical, spherical shells etc. The numerical studies show that the present 2D FE model is more accurate than existing FE models based on first and higher order theories for predicting results close to those obtained by 3D elasticity solutions for laminated composite and sandwich shallow shells. Many new results are presented by varying different parameters which should be useful for future research.