Refined finite element solutions for anisotropic laminated plates

This paper presents some solutions for mechanical responses of angle-ply laminated plates under transverse distributed loads, which are obtained by using refined finite element models adopting variable kinematics based on Carrera's Unified Formulation (CUF). Plates with several types of stacking sequence under different boundary conditions are considered. Layer-wise (LW) models based on Chebyshev polynomials (first kind) and Equivalent Single Layer (ESL) models based on Trigonometric series are used in the analysis. To compare the performances of different displacement-based kinematic models, a set of simply supported boundary conditions and mixed clamped-free boundaries are adopted in the numerical study. A nine-node MITC (Mixed Interpolated of Tensorial Components) plate element is employed to contrast the shear locking phenomenon of thin plates. CUF-based variable kinematic models are used in the numerical study and the number of expansion terms in the thickness direction is increased until the requisite numerical accuracy is achieved. By comparing the numerical results obtained with CUF-based refined models and ABAQUS 3D models as well as reference solutions from literature, the effectiveness of the adopted models is verified. The newly studied numerical cases can be taken as benchmarks for future research.