Abstract
The prediction and analysis of response of laminated composite shell structures under nonstationary random excitation is of considerable interest to design engineers in aerospace and automobile engineering fields. However, it seems that there is no known comprehensive published work on such an analysis that employs the versatile finite element method. Thus, the main focus of the investigation reported in this paper is the application of the hybrid strain-based laminated composite flat triangular shell finite element, that has been developed by the authors, for the analysis of laminated composite shell structures under a relatively wide class of nonstationary random excitations. Representative results of a simply-supported laminated composite cylindrical panel subjected to a point nonstationary random excitation are included.