Buckling of optimised flat composite plates under shear and in-plane bending

This paper details a series of tests carried out to investigate the behaviour of a number of optimised fibre composite plates of differing geometry, simply supported along two edges and built in along the other two, subject to a varying combination of shear and in-plane bending, for which no theoretical solution exists, and assesses the suitability of analytical techniques and finite element analysis to predict this behaviour.