Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Layerwise optimisation for maximising the fundamental

frequencies of point-supported rectangular laminated
composite plates
Y. Narita

*,1,

J.M. Hodgkinson

The Composites Centre, Aeronautics Department, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
Available online 24 June 2004

Abstract
The layerwise optimisation (LO) approach is extended in this work to point-supported, symmetrically laminated rectangular
plates. The plates considered rest on some elastic or rigid point supports distributed in dierent arrangements. The LO approach
provides a simple design procedure for composite structural optimisation which may be used to maximise the fundamental frequencies of the plates. The design variables are taken for a set of bre orientation angles in the symmetric layers. The vibration
problem is solved by the Ritz method with consideration of strain energy stored in the elastic supports or of the Lagrange multiplier
for rigid supports. In numerical results, the symmetric 8-layer plates with eight dierent sets of support positions are considered and
the applicability of the LO approach to the problem is demonstrated by comparing the present optimum solutions with reference
frequencies of laminated plates with typical lay-ups. The relation of the support location and the optimum bre orientation angles is
discussed.

2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the requirements for higher performance and
lower operational cost, more composites are targeted
toward structural applications in aerospace, marine and
automobile engineering. Composite materials are mainly
preferred in such applications because of their advanced
elastic properties and tailoring capability, and have the
potential for incorporating optimum design techniques
into the design process of candidate structures. Among
dynamic problems relating to structural components,
vibration of an elastically point-supported rectangular
plate is one of the technically important problems, since
such structural model is found in applications of space
antennas and solar panels, and in roof structures for
buildings. Electronic circuit boards may also be considered in the model.
A considerable number of publications have studied
the problem of the free vibrations of point-supported
*
Corresponding author. Present address: Division of Mechanical
Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, N13
W8 Kita-ku, 060-8628 Sapporo, Japan.
E-mail address: ynarita@eng.hokudai.ac.jp (Y. Narita).
1
On leave from Hokkaido Institute of Technology.

0263-8223/$ - see front matter
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2004.05.021

at plates. Following a very early work [1] by Cox and

Boxer, a number of analytical studies have been made
on vibration of point-supported, isotropic rectangular
plates [29] in 1970s. Gorman developed the superposition method in the late 1970s and applied it successfully to the vibration of point-supported rectangular
plates [811]. The numerical results in [111] were
summarized in [12,13], and some discrepancies were
discussed by comparison among these results. In 1983,
the nite element method was applied to the problem by
Raju and Rao [14]. The vibration of cantilever plates
with point constraints was also analyzed by Narita [15]
using a RitzLagrange multiplier method and the
superposition technique was applied to the same problem by Saliba [16]. Kim and Dickinson [17] presented a
Ritz method with orthogonal polynomial approximation in 1987.
In the 1990s, many technical papers have appeared on
vibration of point-supported rectangular plates. Liew
and Lam [18] studied eects of point support distribution on vibration behaviour of the plate. The transverse
vibration of a plate moving over multiple point supports
was considered by Lee and Ng [19] by a Lagrange
multiplier approach. Mace [20] analyzed vibration of a
plate with periodically distributed point supports. Lee

128

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

and Lee [21] proposed a method to use static beam

functions under point load to analyze vibration of pointsupported plates. Singhal and Gorman [22] applied the
superposition technique to a partially clamped cantilevered plate with point supports. Kato and Honma [23]
presented a Ritz-type solution to estimate vibration
behaviour of point-supported plates as the model of
building oors. Gorman [24] extended the superposition
method to vibration analysis of point-supported Mindlin plates and claried the dierence in higher modes by
the comparison with results based on the thin plate
theory.
Studies on vibration of point-supported rectangular
plates have continued up to the present date. Saadatpour et al. [25] used the Galerkin method to analyze
vibration of simply supported plates of general shape
with point supports. The nite element strip method was
used by Huang and Thambiratnam [26] to analyze
vibration of plates on elastic point supports. The
vibration of point-supported plates with variable thickness was also analyzed by Zhou [27]. The aforementioned papers [127] mainly deal with point-supported
isotropic plates.
As for point-supported composite plates, Ichinomiya
et al. [28] analyzed the steady state response of laminated composite plates with elastic point supports in
1990. Natural frequencies of point-supported laminated
plates were presented by Abrate [29] and the problem
was formulated by using the lamination parameters
from an optimum design point of view. Ye and Soldatos
[30] used a Lagrange multiplier method and analyzed
three dimensional vibration of composite plates and
cylindrical panels. A steady state response study of an
anisotropic plate resting on viscoelastic point supports
was also presented by Kocat
urk [31]. Cheung and Zhou
[32] used static beam functions in the vibration analysis
of point-supported composite plates. A three dimensional analysis was also carried out by Zhou et al. [33]
for point-supported thick laminated plates.
The literature review shows that a large number of
analytical methods and numerical results have been
developed for the vibration of point-supported isotropic
and composite rectangular plates. The need seems
obvious, however, for optimization studies on designing
the vibration behaviours of point-supported composite
plates, since laminated brous composites have a strong
potential for eective practical use by tailoring the
material characteristics. On the problem of optimizing
vibration behaviour of point-supported laminated
composite plates, only one paper by Abrate [29] has
been found where a set of lamination parameters [34] are
used in the formulation. But only laminated plates with
many layers were considered in order to ignore the
bending and twisting couple terms and limited results
were given probably due to the diculty of determining
optimum lay-ups from the parameter values.

This paper extends a layerwise optimization approach

to consider the optimum design of point-supported
laminated rectangular plates. The object function is taken to be a fundamental frequency of symmetrically
laminated rectangular plates and is maximised with respect to a set of design variables, the bre orientation
angles in the layers. The initial work [35], which proposed the layerwise optimization (LO) approach for the
rst time, has been improved by the introduction of an
iterative procedure [36]. The numerical examples include
eight sets of dierent support location, and the optimum
solutions (i.e. the optimum bre orientation angles and
corresponding maximised fundamental frequencies) are
presented in tables. The validity of the solutions is
demonstrated by comparing the frequencies with those
of plates with typical lay-ups.

2. Point supported laminated plates and layerwise

optimisation
2.1. Laminated plates considered
Fig. 1 shows a laminated composite rectangular plate
of dimensions a
b with thickness h, resting on elastic
supports at xp ; yp p 1; 2; . . . ; P with translational
spring constants kp . A Cartesian coordinate system xy is
taken with its origin at the centre of the plate. The
direction of the bres and the transverse direction to the
bres are denoted by L and T , respectively, and the bre
orientation angle between the x and L axes is denoted by

Fig. 1. Laminated composite rectangular plate resting on some elastic

point supports.

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

h. Each layer is considered to be macroscopically

orthotropic.
Symmetrically laminated plates with even numbers of
layers are considered in the present work and the total
number of layers is dened as 2N . In the lamination
theory the bending stiness which relates the stress
couples to the plate curvatures is given by
Dij

N
2X
k
Q z3  z3k1
3 k1 ij k

i; j 1; 2; 6 for the symmetric laminate, where zk is the

distance to the lower surface of the kth layer, measured
k
from the plate middle surface. The Qij are the elastic
constants determined by a bre orientation angle h and
EL
;
1  mLT mTL
ET
Q22
;
1  mLT mTL
Q11

Q12

EL mTL
;
1  mLT mTL

Q66 GLT

in the kth layer [37], where EL and ET are the moduli of

elasticity in the L and T directions of an orthotropic
layer, respectively, GLT is the shear modulus and mLT and
mTL are the major and minor Poissons ratios.
Natural frequency is normalized in the vibration
analysis as a frequency parameter

1=2
q
2
X xa
3
D0
where x is a radian frequency of free vibration, q is the
averaged mass per unit area and D0 ET h3 =121 
mLT mTL is a reference bending rigidity. The frequency
parameter for the fundamental (lowest) mode, denoted
by X1 , is used as the object function and is maximised in
the present optimisation.
2.2. Optimisation and application of LO approach
The design variables are taken to be a set of bre
orientation angles in the N layers of the upper (and
lower) half of the cross-section:
h1 =h2 =    =hk =    =hN S

where hk is the bre orientation angle in the kth layer

(k 1: outermost, k N : innermost) and the subscript
S denotes symmetric lamination. Then the optimisation problem may be written in standard form as
Find: ~
h h1 ;h2 ;. . .; hk ; .. .; hN
which maximizes : X1 X1 ~
h the fundamental frequency
k

subject to the constraints : 90 6 h 6 90 k 1;2;. . .; N

5

In the layerwise optimization (LO) approach, use of a

simple physical observation:

129

In the bending of plates, the outer layer has a greater

stiening eect than the inner layer and therefore has a
greater inuence on the natural frequency
is made and the following procedure to the optimisation
problem is advocated:
The optimum stacking sequence h1 =h2 =    =hN S;opt
for the maximum (fundamental) natural frequency of a
laminated plate can be obtained by determining the optimum bre angle for each layer sequentially in the order
from the outermost to the innermost layer.
The basic idea of LO was rst presented for vibration
optimisation of rectangular plates with uniform boundary conditions by the rst author [35] and the optimum
lay-ups were determined in a single use of the optimisation procedure. It was found later [36], however, that
the iterative procedure more than one cycle is required
in some cases. For point-supported plates, which involve
more complicating support eects than plates with uniform boundary conditions, it is expected that several
iterative cycles may be necessary in the LO approach.
k
When X1;opt is assumed to be the regressed maximum
frequency parameter, where the superscript (k) refers to
the kth step that corresponds to the kth layer, the iterative procedure may be used to determine X1;opt :
Step 0. Assume a laminated plate made of N hypothetical layers in the upper (and the lower) half with
no bending rigidity.
1
Step 1. Find hopt
, using a one-dimensional search, which
1
maximises the fundamental frequency X1 of the
laminated plate with an orthotropic lamina (i.e.,
with EL ; ET ; GLT and mLT ) in the rst outermost
layer. The (N  1) inner layers remain hypothetical with no rigidity.
2
Step 2. Find hopt
, using a one-dimensional search, which
2
maximises X1 of the laminated plate with an
orthotropic lamina in the second layer and an
orthotropic layer with h1 h1
opt in the rst
layer. The inner (N  2) layers remain hypothetical with no rigidity.
Step 3 to N  1. The foregoing process is repeated to
N 1
yield h3
opt ; . . . ; hopt .
N
Step N. Find hopt which maximises the fundamental freN
quency Xopt of the laminated plate with an
orthotropic lamina in the N th innermost layer.
This last step determines the optimum lay-up
h1 =h2 =    =hN S;opt which maximises the funN
damental frequency X1;opt X1;opt of the plate.
The above set of Steps 1N is considered as one cycle
in an iterative solution procedure [36]. In the rst cycle,
the inner layers are assumed to have zero rigidity, and
the bre orientation angles determined at Step N in the
rst cycle, i.e. h1 =h2 =    =hN S;opt , must be a better
initial approximation for the second cycle of Steps 1N .

130

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

The iterative cycles thus continue until a converged

solution is obtained.

o
fTmax  Vmax  Umax g 0
oAmn
m 0; 1; 2; . . . ; M  1; n 0; 1; 2; . . . ; N  1 12

3. Free vibration of point-supported laminated plates

For rigid point supports, the strain energy of the springs

is replaced by the terms with Lagrange multipliers
kp p 1; 2; . . . ; P as
(
)
P
X
o
Tmax
kp wnp ; gp  Umax 0
oAmn
p1

Since the LO procedure is not dependent upon the

vibration analysis, any analysis method may be used to
calculate the object functions (natural frequencies). For
eciency of the parametric study, a standard Ritz
solution is used in the present study. This solution has a
low computational cost and design parameters can be
varied easily. It also has good accuracy and fast convergence behaviour for various sets of point supports as
will be shown later. To accommodate the point support
in the Ritz method, an elastic energy of the springs is
evaluated and included in the vibration analysis, while
the rigid point support is accommodated by using
Lagrange multipliers [2,15].
For the small amplitude (linear) free vibration of a
thin plate, the deection w may be written as
wx; y; t W x; y sin xt

The maximum kinetic energy is given by

Z Z
1 2
W 2 dA
Tmax qx
2
A

and the maximum elastic energy stored in the translational springs (see Fig. 1) is given by
Vmax

P
X
1
kp W 2 xp ; yp
2
p1

10

In the Ritz method the amplitude is assumed to be of the

form
W x; y

M 1 X
N 1
X

Amn Xm xYn y

13
instead of using Eq. (12).
The result of the minimisation process yields a set of
homogeneous, linear simultaneous equations in the unknowns Amn . For non-trivial solution the determinant of
the coecient matrix is set to zero. The M
N eigenvalues may be extracted and the lowest of these is the
fundamental frequency.

where W is the amplitude. Then, the maximum strain

energy due to the bending is expressed by
2
3
Z Z
D11 D12 D16
1
T
Umax
7
fjg 4 D12 D22 D26 5fjg dA
2
A
D16 D26 D66
where fjg is a curvature vector

T
o2 W o2 W
o2 W
fjg  2  2  2
ox
oy
oxoy

m 0; 1; 2; . . . ; M  1; n 0; 1; 2; . . . ; N  1

11

m0 n0

where Amn are unknown coecients, and Xm x and Yn y

are the functions that kinematical boundary conditions
are satised at the edges. In point-supported plates with
free edges along the boundary simple polynomials
Xm x xm and Yn y y n may be used.
After substituting Eq. (11) into the sum of energies
(7), (9) and (10), the stationary value is obtained by

4. Results and discussions

4.1. Numerical examples
Rectangular plates may rest on point supports distributed in various arrangements. Eight examples of
point location are presented, as shown in Fig. 2, to
demonstrate the eectiveness of the LO approach in
determining the lay-ups which maximise the fundamental frequency of point-supported laminated plates.
All the plates in the examples have free edges along the
boundary and are supported, using n x=a=2 and
g y=b=2, at four point positions:
Ex. 1 np ; gp 1; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1 (four
corners)
Ex. 2 np ; gp 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0:5;
0:5; 0:5 (on the diagonals)
Ex. 3 np ; gp 1; 0; 0; 1; 1; 0; 0; 1 (on the
mid-points of the edges)
Ex. 4 np ; gp 0:5; 0; 0; 0:5; 0:5; 0; 0; 0:5 (on
the x and y axes)
and at three point positions:
Ex. 5 np ; gp 1; 1; 1; 0; 1; 1 (two corners
and the mid-point of one edge)
Ex. 6 np ; gp 1; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1 (three corners)
Ex. 7 np ; gp 1; 1; 0; 0; 1; 1 (two corners
and the centre)
Ex. 8 np ; gp 0:5; 0:5; 0:5; 0; 0:5; 0:5 (three
internal points)
Note that these support positions are given in
dimensionless coordinates and are illustrated for squares

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

131

Fig. 2. Numerical examples (d: point support location).

in Fig. 2. They appear proportionally as xp a=2np

and yp b=2=gp for rectangular plates.
The numerical results are given for symmetrically
laminated 8-layer square a=b 1 and rectangular
plates a=b 2. The design variables are a set of bre
orientation angles of the four upper (and lower) layers,
which are represented by h1 =h2 =h3 =h4 S . h1 is the
bre orientation angle of the rst (outermost) layer and
h4 is that of the fourth (innermost) layer adjacent to the
middle surface of the plate.
The plates are laminated from uni-directional carbon
bre reinforced plastic (CFRP) materials, and the following typical values [38] are assumed as the elastic
moduli and major Poissons ratio for composite plates:
G=E material : EL 138 GPa;
GLT 7:1 GPa;

mLT 0:30

ET 8:96 GPa;
14

The spring constants are made dimensionless and kept a

constant as k  a2 =D0 kp (p 1; 2; 3; 4 for Ex. 1Ex. 4,
and p 1; 2; 3 for Ex. 5Ex. 8).
4.2. Accuracy of the Ritz solutions used in optimisation
To demonstrate the accuracy of the vibration solutions, a convergence study is presented in Table 1 for the
lowest four frequency parameters X1 X4 of the 8-layer
square plate with a typical lay-up [30/)30/30/)30]S . For
the sake of brevity, the bre angles in brackets [ ] are
denoted by the number, i.e., 45 instead of 45 in the
following tables and gures. The Ex. 1 (Elastic point
support, k  102 ) shows an excellent convergence rate
while Ex. 1 (Rigid point support, k  1) shows a
slightly slower rate of convergence. The convergence for

Table 1
Convergence rate of frequency parameters for point supported square
laminated plates (a=b 1, [30/)30/30/)30]S )
No. of
terms

X1

X3

X4

Ex. 1 (elastic point supports, k  102 )

66
11:18a
25:56
88
11:18
25:56
11:18
25:56
10 10
12 12
11:18
25:56

28.21
28:20
28:20
28:20

36.11
35:80
35:80
35:80

Ex. 1 (rigid
66
88
10 10
12 12

point supports)
13:20
36.26
13:20
36:24
13:20
36:24
13:20
36:24

42.36
42.00
42.00
41.99

46.10
46:06
46:06
46:06

Ex. 2 (rigid
66
88
10 10
12 12

point supports)
27.33
52.82
27.20
50.96
27:19
50.48
27:19
50.24

65.04
64.50
64.29
64.21

80.26
79.54
78.94
78.84

X2

Converged values are underlined.

the Ex. 2 (Rigid point support) deteriorates a little due

to internal rigid constraints. Generally speaking, however, the frequency parameters converge from above as
the number of terms M
N in Eq. (11) is increased from
6 6 to 12 12. Particularly, the fundamental frequency
X1 is converged within the four signicant gures, which
is the object function in the present optimisation. The
frequencies were therefore calculated in the following
tables by using M
N 10
10, resulting in 100 terms
in the series representation of the vibration mode.
The lowest four frequency parameters X1 X4 are
presented for Ex. 1Ex. 8 of rigidly point supported

132

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

Table 2
Frequency parameters and comparison for point supported square
isotropic plates (a=b 1, m 0:3, rigid point support)
Ex. 1

Ex. 2
Ex. 3

Ex.
Ex.
Ex.
Ex.
Ex.

4
5
6
7
8

Present
Ref. [1]
Ref. [3]
Ref. [6]
Ref. [12]
Ref. [29]
Present
Present
Ref. [17]
Ref. [29]
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present

X1

X2

X3

X4

7.112
7.117
7.11
7.111
7.15
7.111
19.60
13.47
13.47
13.47
13.47
6.638
3.299
6.641
9.512

15.77
15.73
15.43
15.77
15.64
15.77
23.40
18.14
18.03
18.15
17.09
7.663
9.894
6.736
14.78

15.77
15.73
15.43
15.77
15.64
15.77
33.17
19.02
18.03
18.15
18.65
13.90
15.77
19.60
21.34

19.60
19.13

19.60
19.49
19.60
33.17
19.02
18.93
19.03
18.65
24.64
19.60
19.75
29.09

(k  1) isotropic plates in Table 2. Since there are a

number of papers dealing with vibration of isotropic
plates with point supports, comparisons are made in the
table when it is possible. They agree well with the
present ones and the vibration solution accuracy is
therefore well established.

Table 3
Illustration of the LO procedure for point supported symmetric 8-layer
square plates (a=b 1, rigid point support, increment is h 5)
Ex. 1
First iteration cycle solutions
Step 0
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Second iteration cycle solutions
(same as rst)
Ex. 5
First iteration cycle solutions
Step 0
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Second iteration cycle solutions
Step 0
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Third iteration cycle solutions
(same as second)

X1 =X2 =X3 =X4 S

X1

[*/*/*/*]S
[45/*/*/*]S
[45/)45/*/*]S
[45/)45/)50/*]S
[45/)45/)50/)10]S

12.06
16.67
17.74
17.92
17.92

[*/*/*/*]S
[0/*/*/*]S
[0/)30/*/*]S
[0/)30/45/*]S
[0/)30/45/50]S

[0/)30/45/50]S
[35/)30/45/50]S
[35/)35/45/50]S
[35/)35/)25/50]S
[35/)35/)25/)25]S

15.11
17.25
17.71
19.42
19.59
19.59

7.732
10.85
14.75
15.11

4.3. Optimum solutions in the examples

In applying the LO procedure to an 8-layer plate, the
upper (and lower) four layers are assumed rst to be
hypothetical layers with no rigidity. In Step 1, the rst
outermost layer is replaced by an orthotropic CFRP
layer with elastic properties given in Eq. (14) and the
1
optimum bre orientation angle hopt
is determined
1
sequentially by changing h in 5 increments starting
from )90 and nishing at +90. Finer increments, e.g.
h 2:5 or 1, may be used depending on the desired
solution accuracy. In Step 2, the h2
opt is determined for a
plate with the bre angle of the rst layer maintained at
h1
opt and the virtual second layer is replaced by an
orthotropic CFRP. This process is terminated after h4
opt
is determined in Step 4. The rst set of solution
h1 =h2 =h3 =h4 S;opt is then used as an initial approximation for the solution of next cycle in an iterative LO
procedure [36].
In Table 3, the steps in the optimisation procedure for
determining hk sequentially from outer layers is illustrated for Ex. 1 (four corner points supported) and Ex. 5
(two corner points and the mid-point of one edge supported). Both cases deal with rigid point supports.
Comparison of the dierences in frequency parameter
after each step in the rst cycle, shows that the outer
layer is the most eective in increasing the vibration
frequency for the plates. For Ex. 1, the rst iterative
cycle leads to a converged optimum lay-up (i.e., second
iterative cycle results in the same lay-up as the rst

iterative cycle), while for Ex. 5 the second iterative cycle

gives a converged solution.
Table 4 presents converged optimum solutions for
symmetric 8-layer square plates. Two sets of the eight
examples with elastic point support (k  102 ) and the
eight examples with rigid point support (k  1) are
considered for square plates. In the majority of cases
presented, converged optimum lay-ups are determined
with less than three iterative cycles of the LO procedure.
Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate that the plates with the present
optimum lay-ups h1 =h2 =h3 =h4 S;opt , listed in Table
4, actually give higher fundamental frequencies than
plates with other stacking sequences for the elastic point
support (k  102 ) and rigid support (k  1), respectively. Typical stacking sequences of symmetric 8-layer
plates are chosen for comparison purposes, namely [0/0/
0/0]S , [0/90/0/90]S , [30/)30/30/)30]S , [45/)45/45/)45]S
and [0/)45/45/90]S . The rst two (i.e., [0/0/0/0]S and [0/
90/0/90]S ) are macroscopically specially orthotropic, and
are denoted by r and }, respectively. The next two ([30/
)30/30/)30]S and [45/)45/45/)45]S ) are alternating angle-ply lay-ups, denoted by m and n. The last one ([0/
)45/45/90]S ) is a quasi-isotropic lay-up, denoted by d. It
is observed that all of the present optimum solutions
(denoted by n) have higher frequencies, without exception, than the plates with the ve typical lay-ups.
In more detail, in Fig. 3 (k  102 ), Ex. 3 and Ex. 4
give the maximum and minimum optimum frequencies,

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

133

Table 4
Converged optimum lay-ups and maximum frequencies for point
supported symmetric 8-layer square plates (a=b 1, increment is
h 5)
h1 =h2 =h3 =h4 S;opt

X1;opt

NIC

Elastic support (k 10 )
Ex. 1
[)45/45/40/90]S
Ex. 2
[45/)45/)45/)45]S
Ex. 3
[)45/45/45/55]S
Ex. 4
[90/0/5/)35]S
Ex. 5
[)10/40/)60/)55]S
Ex. 6
[45/)45/45/50]S
Ex. 7
[90/0/0/0]s
Ex. 8
[)50/50/50/50]S

13.46
17.00
18.77
11.85
12.84
8.467
7.814
11.60

2
1
5
2
2
1
1
3

Rigid point support

Ex. 1
[45/)45/)50/)10]S
Ex. 2
[10/90/90/90]S
Ex. 3
[)45/45/45/45]S
Ex. 4
[)30/45/40/40]S
Ex. 5
[35/)35/)25/)25]S
Ex. 6
[45/)45/45/)45]S
Ex. 7
[60/)30/)50/)20]S
Ex. 8
[)55/50/65/60]S

17.92
58.35
42.64
40.11
19.59
11.17
16.49
28.07

1
4
2
3
2
1
3
2

BC

NIC: number of iteration cycles.

Fig. 4. Comparison between the optimum frequency parameter X1;opt

and parameters X1 for rigidly point supported symmetric 8-layer
square plates with various lay-ups, (a=b 1), (n) present optimum
frequency X1;opt , (r) [0/0/0/0]S , (}) [0/90/0/90]S , (m) [30/)30/30/)30]S ,
(M) [45/)45/45/)45]S , (d) [0/)45/45/90]S (quasi-isotropic).

Fig. 3. Comparison between the optimum frequency parameter X1;opt

and parameters X1 for elastically point supported symmetric 8-layer
square plates with various lay-ups, (a=b 1; k  102 ), (n) present
optimum frequency X1;opt , (r) [0/0/0/0]S , (}) [0/90/0/90]S , (m) [30/)30/
30/)30]S , (M) [45/)45/45/)45]S , (d) [0/)45/45/90]S (quasi-isotropic).

respectively, among the cases of four point supports (Ex.

1Ex. 4), and Ex. 5 and Ex. 7 do so among the cases of
three point supports (Ex. 5Ex. 8). In contrast in Fig. 4
k  1, Ex. 2 and Ex. 1 give the maximum and minimum, respectively, among the cases of four point supports, and Ex. 8 and Ex. 6 do so among the cases of
three point supports. This diverse tendency means that
the degree of elastic support strongly aects the optimum lay-ups for the maximum fundamental frequency.
When the frequency variations in Figs. 3 and 4 are
compared, it is also noted that the dierences between
the optimum (maximum) and the minimum frequencies
among the ve lay-ups are magnied for rigid point
support. In other words, the eect of optimisation is
more telling for rigid point support, rather than for
elastic point support. To validate this observation, Fig.
5 presents variations of the optimum frequency parameter X1;opt and frequency parameters X1 with the aforementioned typical lay-ups versus the dimensionless
spring constant k  a2 =D0 kp (p 14). It is clearly
seen that the dierences between the optimum and
others are more signicant as the elastic constant for the
point support is increased.

134

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

Fig. 5. Variations of the optimum frequency parameter X1;opt and

parameters X1 for symmetric 8-layer square plates with various lay-ups
versus dimensionless elastic constant k  of the point supports, (Ex. 1,
a=b 1) (n) present optimum frequency X1;opt , (r) [0/0/0/0]S , (}) [0/90/
0/90]S , (m) [30/)30/30/)30]S , (M) [45/)45/45/)45]S (d) [0/-45/45/90]S
(quasi-isotropic).

Table 5 presents converged optimum lay-ups for the

8-layer rectangular plates (a=b 2) with rigid point
support. The number of iteration cycles are mostly two
or three. The validity of the optimum lay-ups determined using the LO procedure for a rectangle is checked
in Fig. 6, wherein the present optimum frequency
parameters (denoted by n) are compared to those of
plates with [0/0/0/0]S , [0/90/0/90]S , [30/)30/30/)30]S , [45/
)45/45/)45]S and [0/)45/45/90]S denoted by r, }, m, n
and d, respectively. It is evident that all of the present

Table 5
Converged optimum lay-ups and maximum frequencies for point
supported symmetric 8-layer rectangular plates (a=b 2, increment is
h 5)
BC

h1 =h2 =h3 =h4 S;opt

Rigid point support

Ex. 1
[20/)25/)15/85]S
Ex. 2
[0/0/0/0]S
Ex. 3
[)35/35/25/75]S
Ex. 4
[)45/40/30/30]S
Ex. 5
[)5/30/)35/)35]S
Ex. 6
[35/)50/30/35]S
Ex. 7
[5/)25/55/60]S
Ex. 8
[30/)30/)30/)25]S
*

NIC: number of iteration cycles.

X1;opt

NIC

29.53
85.72
79.83
80.53
29.75
20.49
28.13
52.68

2
1
2
2
2
4
3
3

Fig. 6. Comparison between the optimum frequency parameter X1;opt

and parameters X1 for rigidly point supported symmetric 8-layer
rectangular plates with various lay-ups, (a=b 2) (j) present optimum
frequency X1;opt , (r) [0/0/0/0]S , (}) [0/90/0/90]S , (m) [30/)30/30/)30]S ,
(M) [45/)45/45/)45]S , (d) [0/)45/45/90]S (quasi-isotropic).

frequency parameters X1;opt are higher than those of the

other lay-ups, again without any exceptions.

5. Conclusions
An optimisation procedure was extended to the
vibration problem of point-supported laminated rectangular plates. A layerwise optimization (LO) procedure
was explained and used to predict the optimum lay-ups
in order to nd the maximum natural frequency in the
lowest mode. In the vibration analysis, a modied Ritz
method previously developed was used to calculate the
frequency parameters.
In numerical examples, elastic and rigid point supports have been considered in eight dierent arrangements. Convergence and comparison studies were made
to demonstrate the validity of the vibration solutions,
which showed fast convergence and good agreement.
Although it was expected that deection shapes of
point-supported plates, which seem more complicated
than the plates with uniform boundary conditions [35],
would prevent the application of LO procedure from
giving global optimum solutions, the results demon-

Y. Narita, J.M. Hodgkinson / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 127135

strated excellent capability of LO procedure both in

square and rectangular plates. This was shown by
comparing the maximised fundamental frequencies from
LO procedure with the frequencies obtained for typical
cross-ply, angle-ply and quasi-isotropic lay-ups. Thus
the overall excellent applicability of the LO procedure
has been demonstrated for point-supported, laminated
composite structures.
Acknowledgements
The rst author wishes to express his appreciation to
Prof. F.L. Matthews, former Director of the Composites
Centre, Imperial College London, for his acceptance as
an academic visitor and also to the nancial support
from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
(JSPS) without which this research would not have been
possible.
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