An investigation on buckling of composite laminated plates with corner circular notches

Notches, holes etc. can often be found in structural components for ventilation and sometimes to lighten the structure. In aircraft components, such as wing, spar, fuselage, and ribs, these cutouts are necessary for access, inspection, electric lines, and fuel lines or to reduce the overall weight of the aircraft. In this study, buckling behaviors of simply supported composite laminated square plates with corner circular notches under in-plane static loadings are investigated using the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The formulations derived are implemented in a Fortran computer code. Finite element method (FEM) is also performed to predict the effects of notch sizes, plate thickness ratios, material modulus ratios, loadings, various reinforcement angles, and ply lamination geometry on the critical buckling loads. Numerical solutions are shown in graphical form and some results are compared with those of given literatures.