ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the application of energy principles to the analysis of anisotropic laminated plates. These principles will be used in conjunction with the calculus of variations to obtain the governing equations and natural boundary conditions of an anisotropic laminated plate. The Ritz and Galerkin methods are based on energy principles. The Ritz method provides a convenient method for obtaining approximate solutions to boundary value problems. This approach is equally applicable to bending, buckling, and free vibration problems. In general, both the Ritz and Galerkin methods lead to approximate solutions in that the equilibrium equations, or equations of motion for dynamic problems, are only approximately satisfied. The key to obtaining convergence to an exact solution for both the Ritz and Galerkin methods is the choice of a complete set of functions to represent the displacements. The chapter discusses the difficulties of the Ritz and Galerkin methods often provide useful tools for obtaining solutions to complex boundary value problems.
