Application of the dynamic stiffness method in the vibration analysis of stiffened composite plates

In the paper, the DSE based on the higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) is applied to study free vibration analysis of composite stiffened plates. The numerical analysis has been carried out through an illustrative example in order to check the accuracy of the proposed method. The influence of side-to-thickness ratio on the free vibration characteristics of stiffened plate has been studied numerically. The results are validated using the available analytical data as well as with the FEM solutions.