Viscoelastic analysis of von Karman laminated plates under in-plane compression with initial deflection

The creep responses of simply-supported cross-ply and angle-ply viscoelastic laminates, having various magnitudes of imperfections, under in-plane compression are examined. The nonlinear strain-displacement relation is based on the von Karman assumption. The stress function is obtained by solving the compatibility equation by the use of the Laplace transform, and the deflection is calculated from the moment equation by the Galerkin method and a numerical integration scheme. The numerical results of deflection history and edge shortening for the glass/epoxy laminates are presented for illustrating the effect of imperfections and viscoelastic properties on the creep behavior. The solutions based on the quasi-elastic approach are also presented for comparison. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.