Buckling of laminated composite plates subjected to mechanical and thermal loads using meshless collocations

Meshless collocations utilizing Gaussian and Multiquadric radial basis functions for the stability analysis of orthotropic and cross ply laminated composite plates subjected to thermal and mechanical loading are presented. The governing differential equations of plate are based on higher order shear deformation theory considering two different transverse shear stress functions. The plate governing differential equations are discretized using radial basis functions to cast a set of simultaneous equations. The convergence of both radial basis functions is studied for different values of shape parameters. Several numerical examples are undertaken to demonstrate the accuracy of present method and the effects of orthotropy ratio of the material, span to thickness ratio of the plate, and fiber orientation on critical load/temperature are also presented.