The effects of non-uniform temperature distribution and locally distributed anisotropic properties on thermal buckling of laminated panels

The present paper is concerned with the optimal design problem of thermal buckling for fiber reinforced laminated panels. The effects of non-uniform temperature fields and locally distributed anisotropic properties on the thermal buckling behavior are studied. In this analysis, based on the classical lamination theory in conjunction with the Hamilton's principle, the critical thermal buckling temperature difference is deduced. The numerical results show that under the non-uniform thermal loads the isotropic panel performs as anisotropic structure and it also show that the center of panel is more sensitive to the thermal effects than the edges. The effects of thermal load on panels with different boundary conditions are also investigated and it is found that the panel edges with loose constraint are more sensitive to temperature effect than with strict constraint. In the optimal fiber design problem for thermal buckling, by comparing the critical thermal buckling temperature difference of nine types of panels with different fiber distribution, it is found that the short fiber distribution can largely improve the critical thermal buckling temperature difference of fiber reinforced laminated panels. Finally, using the genetic algorithm the optimal fiber distribution is obtained for an eight-layer symmetrical panel. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.