AbstractThis investigation concerns itself with the dynamic analysis of thin, laminated composite plates consisting of layers of orthotropic laminae that undergo large arbitrary rigid body displacements and small elastic deformations. A non‐linear finite element formulation is developed which utilizes the assumption that the bonds between the laminae are infinitesimally thin and shear non‐deformable. Using the expressions for the kinetic and strain energies, the lamina mass and stiffness matrices are identified. The non‐linear mass matrix of the lamina is expressed in terms of a set of invariants that depend on the assumed displacement field. By summing the kinetic and strain energies of the laminae of an element, the element mass and stiffness matrix can be defined in terms of the set of element invariants. It is shown that the element invariants can be expressed explicitly in terms of the invariants of its laminae. By assembling the finite elements of the deformable body, the body invariants can be identified and expressed explicitly in terms of the invariants of the laminae of its elements. In the dynamic formulation presented in this paper, the shape functions of the laminae are assumed to have rigid body modes that need to describe only large rigid body translations. The computer implementation and the use of the formulation developed in this investigation in multibody dynamics are discussed in the second part of this