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A study on the finite element (FE) analysis of laminated composite plates is described in this paper. In order to investigate structural behavior of laminated composite plates, a four-node laminated plate element is newly developed by using a higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT). In particular, assumed natural strains are introduced in the present FE formulation to alleviate the locking phenomenon. Several numerical examples are carried out and its results are then compared with the existing reference solutions. It is found to be that the proposed FE is very effective to remove the locking phenomenon and produces reliable numerical solutions for most laminated composite plate structures.