DELAMINATION BUCKLING OF LAMINATED PLATES

The subject of this paper is the buckling of laminated plates, with a pre-existing delamination, subjected to in-plane loading. Each laminate is modelled as an orthotropic Mindlin plate. The analysis is carried out by a combination of the finite element and asymptotic expansion methods. By applying the finite element method, plates with general delamination regions can be studied. The asymptotic expansion method reduces the number of unknown variables of the eigenvalue equation to that of the equation for a single Kirchhoff plate. Numerical results for the critical buckling load are presented for several examples. The effects of the shape, size and position of the delamination on the buckling load are studied through these examples.