Correlation study of finite element modeling for vibrations of composite plates

This paper describes a correlation study performed to evaluate finite element models for vibrations of composite material structures. A two-dimensional plate element model and a three-dimensional solid element model are used to examine the out-of-plane mode shapes and natural frequencies in comparison with the experimental results. By using the equivalent stiffness and mass data of the composite structure, a homogeneous two-dimensional plate model gives excellent agreement with the experimental results. The two-dimensional plate element model results are further compared with the three-dimensional solid element solutions. The proposed two-dimensional modeling technique requires much less computational time and provides better agreement with the measured values than the three-dimensional model.