Mechanical and thermal buckling analysis of laminated composite plates

Abstract: Composite laminated structures have many application fields such as aerospace, civil, marine, bio medical, transportation, and mechanical engineering because of their convenience in handling, and very good mechanical properties. Buckling behavior of laminated composite plates subjected to plane loads is indeed an important consideration in the primary design of aircraft and launch vehicle components. In addition, these elements may expose to high-temperature fields (while launching or reentry) which may result in failure due to thermal buckling. Composite laminated plates with holes and other openings are used as structural members in aerospace industry. The buckling behavior of such plates has always received much attention.In this study buckling analysis has been carried out of a laminar composite plate with an elliptical cut to shape. In the analysis, finite element method (FEM) was applied to perform parametric studies on various plates based on the shape and position and orientation of the hole.ANSYS software has been used as a platform for buckling analysis.