A new shear deformation theory for laminated composite plates

Abstract In the present study, a new higher order shear deformable laminated composite plate theory is proposed. It is constructed from 3-D elasticity bending solutions by using an inverse method. Present theory exactly satisfies stress boundary conditions on the top and the bottom of the plate. It was observed that this theory gives most accurate results with respect to 3-D elasticity solutions for bending and stress analysis when compared with existing five degree of freedom shear deformation theories [Reddy JN. A simple higher-order theory for laminated composite plates. J Appl Mech 1984;51:745–52; Touratier M. An efficient standard plate theory. Int J Eng Sci 1991;29(8):901–16; Karama M, Afaq KS, Mistou S. Mechanical behaviour of laminated composite beam by new multi-layered laminated composite structures model with transverse shear stress continuity. Int J Solids Struct 2003;40:1525–46]. All shear deformation theories predict the vibration and buckling results with reasonable accuracy, generally within %2 for investigated problems. Previous exponential shear deformation theory of Karama et al. (2003) can be found as a special case.