Thermal buckling response of all-edge clamped rectangular plates with symmetric angle-ply lamination

An analytical solution to thermal buckling response of moderately thick symmetric angle-ply laminated, all-edge clamped rectangular plates subjected to a uniformly distributed temperature load is presented. A boundary continuous solution methodology based on double Fourier series functions that satisfy the rigidly clamped boundary conditions is assumed. The through-thickness formulation of the plate considers transverse shear deformation effects by employing the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) based on Reissner and Mindlin hypothesis that result in three highly coupled partial differential equations. The numerical results are presented for various parametric effects such as length-to-thickness ratio, plate aspect ratio and major-to-minor modulus of elasticity ratio. The results of the analytical method are compared with the results obtained using finite element method. The numerical results that are presented should serve as a benchmark for future comparisons of such popular approximate methods as finite element, finite difference, Rayleigh–Ritz, Galerkin approach, collocation, or experimental methods.