A Review of Laminated Composite Plate Buckling

Abstract

A brief overview is presented of considerations involved in the buckling of composite plates made of laminae having continuous, parallel fibers. Such plates are governed by orthotropic or anisotropic plate buckling theory for laminates which are symmetrically stacked with respect to the plate midplane. Unsymmetric laminates require a more complicated theory with bending-stretching coupling. Additional complicating factors are considered, including: interior holes, shear deformation, sandwich construction involving other materials, local effects, nonlinear stress-strain relationships, hygrothermal effects, and external stiffeners. Postbuckling behavior and the effects of initial imperfections are also described. Some representative results from the extensive literature (352 references) are included to aid in describing the various effects.