Thermomechanical postbuckling of composite laminated plates by the spline finite strip method

The thermomechanical postbuckling behaviour of composite laminated plates is studied with the aid of the B-spline finite strip method under the combination of temperature load and applied uniaxial mechanical stress. To account for through-thickness shear deformation effects, the thermal-elastic, first-order shear deformation (Reissner-Mindlin) plate theory is used in this paper. General boundary conditions and laminate lay-ups can be accommodated in the newly developed finite strip approach. A range of applications is described and the results generated by the finite strip procedure are compared with the results of previous studies. The spline finite strip method is shown to be versatile and accurate with good convergence qualities. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.