Experimental, numerical and analytical study of buckling of rectangular composite laminates

Abstract

The deflection of composite laminates and their maximum compressive and tensile strains under in-plane compression, buckling and post-buckling conditions are investigated in this study. For this purpose, different equivalent single layer and layer wise theories based on polynomial and trigonometric shape functions are used. Then the Rayleigh–Ritz approximation technique and the principle of minimum potential energy are applied to obtain the unknown coefficients of the displacement fields. The results are compared with a three-dimensional finite element analysis and an experimental program is conducted to produce data for validation of theoretical and numerical methods. Mesh independency is also studied to evaluate the accuracy of the finite element results. Regarding to the computational costs and agreement of the analytical and numerical results with the experimental ones, the layer wise higher order shear deformation theory (LHSDT) based on polynomial shape functions is the most efficient and flexible theory in calculation of the deflection and strains for the very thin to thick laminates in the buckling and post-buckling conditions.