Thermoelastic stability analysis of laminated composite plates: An analytical approach

The paper presents Chebyshev series based analytical solutions for the postbuckling response of the moderately thick laminated composite rectangular plates with and without elastic foundations. The plate is assumed to be subjected to in-plane mechanical, thermal and thermomechanical loadings. In-plane mechanical loading consists of uniaxial, biaxial, shear loadings and their combinations. The temperature induced loading is due to either uniform temperature or a linearly varying temperature across the thickness. The mathematical formulation is based on higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) and von-Karman nonlinear kinematics. The elastic foundation is modeled as shear deformable with cubic nonlinearity. The thermal and mechanical properties of the composites are assumed to be temperature dependent. The quadratic extrapolation technique is used for linearization and fast converging finite double Chebyshev series is used for spatial discretization of the governing nonlinear equations of equilibrium. The effects of plate parameters and foundation parameters on buckling and postbuckling response of the plate are presented.