This study describes the establishment of similarity conditions among structural systems. The main objective of this research is to study the applicability of similitude theory in establishing necessary similarity conditions for designing scaled down models for predicting the vibration behavior of delaminated composite beam-plates. The results presented herein indicate that, for vibration response of delaminated plates, based on structural similitude, a set of scaling laws can be found to establish necessary structural similitude and design rules for small scale models. For models with the same material properties and stacking sequence as prototype, distorted models with different delamination length than those of prototype can predict the behavior of the prototypes with good accuracy.

Keywords