14. Coupled Stretching-Bending Analysis

If the laminates are unsymmetric they will be stretched as well as bent even under pure in-plane forces or pure bending moments. To study the mechanical behavior of thin laminated plates, the coupled stretching-bending theory of laminates was developed. Since this theory considers linear variation of displacements across the thickness direction, by separating the thickness dependence it has been shown that the general solutions can be obtained through the complex variable formalism. In this chapter, the counterpart of Stroh formalism generally called Stroh-like formalism introduced in Sect. 2.​3 is employed to deal with the problems of coupled stretching-bending analysis such as holes/cracks/inclusions in laminates under uniform stretching and bending moments, under uniform heat flow, and their associated Green’s functions.