Postbuckling analysis of laminated composite plates subjected to the combination of in-plane shear, compression and lateral loading

This study deals with postbuckling behavior of laminated composite plates under the combination of in-plane shear, compression and lateral loading using an Element-based Lagrangian formulation. Natural co-ordinate-based strains, stresses and constitutive equations are used in the present shell element. The Element-based Lagrangian formulation described in this paper, in comparison with the traditional approaches, is more attractive not only because it uses only single mapping but also it converges faster. In addition, the finite element (FE) formulation based on the assumed natural strain method for composite structures shows excellence from the standpoints of computational efficiency as well as its ability to avoid both membrane and shear locking behavior. The numerical results obtained are in good agreement with those reported by other investigators. In particular, new results reported in this paper show the influence of various types of loading, materials and number of layers on postbuckling behavior. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.