Nonlinear analysis of moderately thick laminated rectangular plates

Analytical solutions to the geometrically nonlinear boundary value problems of laminated-composite plate undergoing moderately large deformations and subjected to various boundary conditions are presented in this paper. The nonlinear coupled partial differential equations are linearized using a quadratic extrapolation technique. The spatial discretization of the linear differential equations is carried out using fast-converging Chebyshev polynomials. A convergence study reveals that 8-10 terms of expansion of the function is sufficient to yield quite accurate results. The results fur uniformly loaded, moderately thick laminated-composite plates with simply supported immovable edges, clamped immovable edges, free edges, and their combinations are presented. Some new results are presented, and it is observed that the present method is efficient and less expensive.