Delamination buckling of a rectangular orthotropic composite plate containing a band crack

The delamination buckling problem for a rectangular plate made of an orthotropic composite material is studied. The plate contains a band crack whose faces have an initial infinitesimal imperfection. The subsequent development of this imperfection due to an external compressive load acting along the crack is studied through the use of the three-dimensional geometrically nonlinear field equations of elasticity theory for anisotropic bodies. A criterion of initial imperfection is used in determining the critical forces. The corresponding boundary-value problems are solved by employing the boundary-form perturbation technique and the FEM. Numerical results for the critical force are presented.