Experimental Investigation of the Dynamic Response of a Symmetric Laminated Composite Beam Via Laser Vibrometry

Abstract

This article reports the experimental analysis of free and forced vibrations of a cantilever symmetric laminated composite beam with different lay-up sequences. The free vibrations generated due to initial displacements are recorded by two laser displacement sensors. The damping ratios for different ply orientations are determined by using the ratios between the successive peaks in the free vibration responses and the corresponding envelope curves. The dynamic response of the beam to a moving load with constant velocity is also investigated. The pressured air is blown out onto the beam to create the load and the movement of the load is achieved by an industrial robot manipulator. The moving load mechanism is peculiar to this study. The free and moving load responses are also examined by the finite element method. A commercial finite element package ANSYS ® is used for numerical analyses. The results reported in this study show that the lay-up sequence has an important role on the dynamic response of the laminated composites and the velocity of the moving load affects the dynamic response considerably, especially for [90] 2s lay-up.