Thermal postbuckling of shear-deformable laminated plates with piezoelectric actuators

Abstract A thermal postbuckling analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear-deformable laminated plate with piezoelectric actuators subjected to the combined action of thermal and electric loads. The temperature field considered is associated with a parabolic distribution over the plate surface and a uniform distribution in the thickness direction. The electric field is assumed to be the transverse component, EZ, only. The material properties are assumed to be independent of the temperature and the electric field. The governing equations of a laminated plate are based on Reddy's higher-order shear-deformation plate theory that includes thermo-piezoelectric effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. The analysis uses a mixed Galerkin-perturbation technique to determine thermal buckling temperature and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the thermal postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, symmetric cross-ply laminated plates with fully covered or embedded piezoelectric layers under different sets of thermal and electric loading conditions. The effects played by transverse shear deformation, the plate aspect ratio, stacking sequence, thermal load ratio, applied voltage as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.