A new method for analysing wave fields in laminated composite plates: two-dimensional cases

A new method is proposed to analyse the wave field in a laminated composite plate excited by an incident wavelet of low to intermediate frequency. In this method, several techniques are combined to avoid numerical difficulties and obtain a high computational efficiency. To deal with the problem caused by the inhomogeneity of the plate in the thickness direction, the finite element technique is used to divide the plate into strip elements. The Fourier transform is then used in the horizontal direction of the plate. In dealing with the time integration, the Newmark scheme (a direct integral scheme) is employed to obtain the displacement in the Fourier transform domain. Finally, the wave field in the plate is obtained by an inverse Fourier integration. The present method can be used for laminates with many layers, and the integrand for the inverse Fourier transform behaves very well and is easy to evaluate. Examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the present method, and wave fields in laminated composite plates are also investigated.