Reference surface element modelling of composite plate/shell delamination buckling and postbuckling

A recently developed reference surface element technique is used to model the behaviour of the buckling and postbuckling of delaminated plates and shells. The technique can be easily incorporated into any finite element analysis programme for which the beam, plate and shell elements etc. satisfy the Reissner–Mindlin assumption. In this paper, the reference surface element formulation of a four-node Co quadrilateral membrane-shear-bending element (ZQUA24) is presented and numerical investigations are performed for composite plates and shells with various delamination shapes. The numerical results show that the present technique is simple, reliable and able to model delamination buckling and postbuckling behaviour of laminated plates or shells. Observations of practical engineering significance are obtained from the study.