Post-buckling responses of a laminated composite beam

This paper presents post-buckling responses of a simply supported laminated composite beam subjected to a non-follower axially compression loads. In the nonlinear kinematic model of the laminated beam, total Lagrangian approach is used in conjunction with the Timoshenko beam theory. In the solution of the nonlinear problem, incremental displacement-based finite element method is used with Newton-Raphson iteration method. There is no restriction on the magnitudes of deflections and rotations in contradistinction to von-Karman strain displacement relations of the beam. The distinctive feature of this study is post-buckling analysis of Timoshenko Laminated beams full geometric non-linearity and by using finite element method. The effects of the fibber orientation angles and the stacking sequence of laminates on the post-buckling deflections, configurations and stresses of the composite laminated beam are illustrated and discussed in the numerical results. Numerical results show that the above-mentioned effects play a very important role on the post-buckling responses of the laminated composite beams.