Large deflection analysis of the moderately thick general theta ply laminated plates on nonlinear elastic foundation with various boundary conditions

This paper presents a powerful method i.e. the kinetic Dynamic Relaxation for analyzing general theta ply laminated plates, resting on nonlinear elastic foundation with different boundary conditions. Comprehensive comparison and parametric studies prove accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach with interesting specifications such as fully vector calculations, independency to configuration, situation and angle of plies so that general theta ply laminated plate with simultaneous coupling between membrane, bending and shear strains could be analyzed as simple as analyzing of symmetric cross ply plate. Moreover, the proposed technique could simply satisfy complicated boundary conditions such as free and movable edges. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.