Thermomechanical Buckling of Laminated Composite Plates Using Mixed, Higher-Order Analytical Formulation

A novel, analytical mixed theory based on the potential energy principle has been presented in this paper to investigate buckling response of laminated composite plates subjected to mechanical and hygrothermal loads. Two sets of higher-order mixed models have been proposed on the basis of an individual layer as well as equivalent single layer theories by selectively incorporating nonlinear components of Green’s strain tensor. Displacements, as well as transverse stress continuities, have been enforced in the formulation of models by incorporating displacements and transverse stresses as the degrees-of-freedom. The modal transverse stresses have been obtained as eigenvectors and thus their separate calculations have been advantageously avoided. Solutions from the models have been shown to be in excellent agreement with the available three-dimensional elasticity solutions. Few benchmark solutions have also been presented for the bi-axial compression-tension loading.