Buckling Analysis of Nonlinear First-Order Shear Deformation Composite Plates

This paper developed the buckling analysis of nonlinear behavior of first-order shear deformation laminated composite plates. The first-order displacement functions are used based on some simplifying assumptions. This article further simplifies the transverse displacement into bending and shear components at the midplane have reduced the number of variables and governing differential equations. The von Karman assumptions are used to derive the nonlinear strains based on the displacement functions. Hamilton’s principle is used to derive the equation of motion and boundary conditions. The analytical solutions are developed from the present theory and compared the results of the critical buckling loads with exact and three-dimensional solutions. Result shows that the present theory has closely associated with the exact and three-dimensional theory.