The polar analysis of the Third-order Shear Deformation Theory of laminates

In this paper the Verchery's polar method is extended to the conceptual framework of the Reddy's Third-order Shear Deformation Theory (TSDT) of laminates. In particular, a mathematical representation based upon tensor invariants is derived for all the laminate stiffness matrices (basic and higher-order stiffness terms). The major analytical results of the application of the polar formalism to the TSDT of laminates are the generalisation of the concept of a quasi-homogeneous laminate as well as the definition of some new classes of laminates. Moreover, it is proved that the elastic symmetries of the laminate shear stiffness matrices (basic and higher-order terms) depend upon those of their in-plane counterparts. As a consequence of these results a unified formulation for the problem of designing the laminate elastic symmetries in the context of the TSDT is proposed. The optimum solutions are found within the framework of the polar-genetic approach, since the objective function is written in terms of the laminate polar parameters, while a genetic algorithm is used as a numerical tool for the solution search. In order to support the theoretical results, and also to prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach, some new and meaningful numerical examples are discussed in the paper.