Dynamic characterization of thin-walled laminated channel beams with warping

The dynamic characteristics of a round cornered C-channel beam made of laminated composite material are studied. The sharp corners are rounded for manufacturing considerations. Thin-walled beam theory is used to formulate the coupled vibration of a rounded C-channel beam with fixed-free end conditions. It is shown that cross-sectional properties used for isotropic case are applicable for laminated composites and the material properties needed for the formulation can be obtained using the law of average. A comparative study is conducted to show the advantage of using composites. The effect of radius of corner and warping on the natural frequency is investigated. The functional of the equations of motion is formed using the variational method. The Ritz method has been used to formulate an eigenvalue problem and its frequency equation. The method proposed is systematic. The computerized procedure can be used as a fast design tool in the design of composite channel beam structures.