Postbuckling of long unsymmetrically laminated composite plates under axial compression

An approximate solution is given for the postbuckling of infinitely long and unsymmetrically laminated composite plates. This solution is obtained by superposing a polynomial transverse displacement given by bending due to unsymmetric laminate configurations and a simple functional representation for the buckling mode in conjunction with the Galerkin method. Nondimensional parameters are used to express the approximate solution in a very simple and clear formulation. The results given by this solution for axial compression in the longitudinal direction are compared with the results given by the nonlinear finite element method (FEM) for finite length rectangular long plates. The influence of the boundary conditions on postbuckling response is also studied. For the FEM analysis, two different simply supported boundary conditions on the long edges of the plate are considered. It is found that these two sets of boundary conditions give different results for the buckling and postbuckling finite element analysis. In most cases the FEM analysis overestimate and, respectively, underestimate the approximate closed form solution, depending on the type of simply supported boundary condition considered. Thus, the approximate solution appears useful for design purposes as an averaged quantity between the two FEM analyses. Also, it is found that the reduced bending stiffness method can be successfully used for determining the approximate solution.