Buckling analysis of symmetrically laminated composite plates including the effect of variable pre-stress field using the Ritz method

A buckling solution capable of accounting for prebuckling stress field heterogeneities is proposed. Oftentimes the same structural elements that restrict the out-of-plane displacement of the edges of a plate may also constrain their in-plane movements and cause heterogeneous prebuckling stress fields. The effect of these constraints and the consequent prebuckling stress field heterogeneity is vastly overlooked in the context of approximate analytical buckling solutions. The novelty of this work lies in basing the eigenvalue buckling analysis on a calculated prebuckling in-plane stress field. The in-plane stress field is determined by conducting a displacement based linear elasticity analysis. In both elasticity and eigenvalue buckling analyses, the deformations of the anisotropic laminate were approximated using a first-order shear deformation theory. The equilibrium and instability equations were derived using the principle of stationary total potential energy and by employing the Ritz method. The derived formulation along with arbitrarily selected sets of boundary conditions was incorporated into a Matlab program and used for demonstrating the effect of in-plane constraints on prebuckling and buckling behavior of plates. Through a parametric study, the effect of the geometric configuration of plates on their buckling strength for selected symmetrical laminates was investigated.