Thermal Buckling Optimization of Temperature-Dependent Laminated Composite Skew Plates

As a first endeavor, the differential quadrature method in conjunction with the genetic algorithms (GAs) is applied to obtain the optimum (maximum) buckling temperature of laminated composite skew plates. The material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent and the governing equations are based on the first-order shear deformation plate theory. After discretizing the governing equations and the related boundary conditions, a direct iterative method in conjunction with GAs is used to determine the optimum fiber orientation for the maximum buckling temperature. The applicability, rapid rate of convergence, and high accuracy of the method are established by solving various examples and by comparing the results with those in the existing literature. Then, the effects of the temperature dependence of the material properties, boundary conditions, length-to-thickness ratio, number of layers, and skew angle on the maximum buckling temperature of the laminated skew plates are presented.