Free vibration and postbuckling of laminated composite Timoshenko beams

Abstract A numerical solution method was developed to investigate the postbuckling behavior and vibrations around the buckled configurations of symmetrically and unsymmetrically laminated composite Timoshenko beams subject to different boundary conditions. The Hamilton principle was employed to derive the governing equations and corresponding boundary conditions which are then discretized by introducing a set of matrix differential operators. The pseudo-arc-length continuation method was used to solve the postbuckling problem. To study the free vibration that takes place around the buckled configurations, the corresponding eigenvalue problem was solved by means of the postbuckling configuration modes obtained in the previous step. The static bifurcation diagrams for composite beams with different lay-up laminates are given, and it is shown that the lay-up configuration considerably affects the magnitude of critical buckling load and postbuckling behavior. The study of the vibrations of composite beams with different laminations around the buckled configurations indicates that the natural frequency in the prebuckling domain increases as the stiffness of a beam increases, while there is no specific relation between the lay-up lamination and natural frequency in the postbuckling domain which necessitates conducting an accurate analysis in this area.