The influence of mechanical couplings on the compressive stability of anti-symmetric angle-ply laminates

The compressive stability of anti-symmetric angle-ply laminated plates with particular reference to the degrading influence of membrane-flexural coupling is reported in this paper. The degree of membrane-flexural coupling in the laminated composite plates is varied, essentially, by altering the ply-angle and the number of plies in the laminated stack for a given composite material system. The coupled compressive buckling solutions are determined in the paper using the finite strip method of analysis and the buckling displacement fields of the strip formulation are those which are able to provide zero in-plane normal movement at the edge boundaries of the laminated plates. Results are given for anti-symmetric angle-ply laminated plates subjected to uniaxial compression and these have been obtained from fully converged finite strip structural models. Validation of the finite strip formulation is indicated in the paper through comparisons with exact solutions where appropriate. Increasing the number of plies in the laminated system is seen to reduce the degree of coupling and the critical stress levels are noted to tend towards the plate orthotropic solutions. The ply-angle corresponding to the optimised buckling stress for any particular laminate is noted in the paper to be influenced by the support boundary conditions at the plates unloaded edges. For any particular laminate the minimum critical buckling stress and corresponding natural half-wavelength of the buckling mode are shown to be highly sensitive to ply-angle variation. Some post-buckling results are presented in the paper and these have been determined using the finite element method of analysis. The influence of membrane-nexural coupling is shown to be significant throughout the compressive post-buckling history of the laminated plates. The optimised ply-angle with regard to the critical compressive buckling stress of square simply supported antisymmetric angle-ply laminates is shown to be less effective in the post-buckling range with regard to post-buckled compressional stiffness. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. Alt rights reserved.