An efficient technique to include shear deformation in spline finite strip analysis of composite plates

Abstract

<jats:p> An efficient technique for the incorporation of transverse shear deformation in the analysis of laminated composite plates by spline finite strip method has been proposed. The Reissner-Mindlin's plate theory has been used to perform the formulation where transverse displacement and transverse shear strain components are the independent field variables. The interpolation function used for the transverse displacement is cubic whereas the shear strains are linear. To validate the proposed model and study its performance, numerical examples of composite plates have been solved and the results obtained have been compared with the published ones. Examples of isotropic plates have also been included as the model has not been tested with isotropic plates. A very thin plate has been analyzed to show that the proposed model is free from shear locking problems. </jats:p>