Nonlinear transient response of a laminated composite plate under time-dependent pulses

This paper includes in-plane stiffness and inertia effects on the motion of a laminated composite plate subjected to explosive pressure pulses. The geometric nonlinearity effects are taken into account with the von Karman large deflection theory of thin plates. Transverse shear stresses are ignored. The in-plane stiffness is taken into account as a difference of the analysis made before. All edges simply supported boundary conditions are considered in the analyses. The equations of motion for the plate are derived by the use of the virtual work principle. Approximate solutions are assumed for the space domain and substituted into the equations of motion. Then the Galerkin method is used to obtain the nonlinear differential equations in the time domain. The finite difference method is applied to solve the system of coupled nonlinear equations. The influence of loading effects on the nonlinear dynamic response has been predicted for all edges simply-supported plates. The displacement functions are chosen by considering the results of static large deformation analysis of laminated composite by using a commercial finite element code ANSYS 10.0 software. A FORTRAN program was described for automating the application of explosive pressure pulses to a simply supported laminated composite plate. A detailed analysis of the influence of different type of pressure pulses on dynamic response is carried out.