Buckling behavior of standing laminated Mindlin plates subjected to body force and vertical loading

In this article, an exact analytical solution for stability analysis of vertical moderately thick laminated rectangular plates subjected to selfweight and top load on the basis of the first-order shear deformation plate theory is presented. It is assumed that the symmetric laminated rectangular plate is composed of transversely isotropic layers. Employing an analytical approach, the coupled governing stability equations of the laminated plate are converted into two uncoupled partial differential equations in terms of transverse displacement and an auxiliary function. It is considered that the vertical sides of the laminated plate are simply supported. Using Levy-type solution, the decoupled equations are reduced to two ordinary differential equations. One of these equations has variable coefficients, for which an exact analytical solution is obtained in the form of power series method of Frobenius. After appropriate convergence study, the present analysis is validated by comparing the results with the existing data reported in the literature. Furthermore, the effects of aspect ratio, plate thickness, boundary conditions, weight of plate and top load on the stability of laminated rectangular plates are investigated and discussed in details. The presented formulations and results can be used as benchmark for future research studies.