Thermal buckling of laminated composite plates using layerwise displacement model

In this paper thermal buckling of laminated composite plates, based on Layerwise Theory of Reddy and new version of Layerwise Theory of Reddy, presented for the first time, are formulated using the principle of virtual displacements (PVD). The Navier's analytical solution is derived from the strong form, while the weak form is discretized using the isoparametric finite element approximation. The nine-node Lagrangian isoparametric element is used to derive element stiffness and geometric stiffness matrix. The originally coded MATLAB program is used to investigate the effects of temperature distribution, side to thickness ratio, aspect ratio, modulus ratio E1/E2, thermal expansion coefficient ratio α2/α1, mesh refinement and boundary conditions on thermal buckling of isotropic, orthotropic and laminated composite plates. The accuracy of the numerical model is verified by comparison with the available results from the literature and some new results are presented.