Study of interaction curves for composite laminate subjected to in-plane uniaxial and shear loadings

Abstract In this study an attempt has been made to incorporate the effect of transverse shear on the stability of moderately thick/very thick composite laminated plates under in-plane compressive and shear loading using a Simple Higher Order Shear Deformation Theory based on four unknown displacement functions ( u 0 , v 0 , w b , w s ) instead of five which is commonly used in most of the higher order theories. The finite element method is employed to study the initial buckling load of laminated plates. The change in initial buckling response of thick rectangular antisymmetric laminates with respect to the fibre orientation angle has been studied. The interaction curves (between N x and N xy for different parameters of the laminates) are studied in detail.