Abstract
Advanced fiber-reinforced composite materials are being used as structural members in various fields because of their high strength and high stiffness-to-weight ratios. Hence, analysis of thin laminated structures is important. The post-buckling behaviors of thin laminated plates under uniaxial compression have been discussed by many researchers. However, little research has been performed on the secondary buckling phenomenon for thin laminated plates, which occurs with further increase of load. In this paper, the stability conditions of carbon–epoxy symmetrically laminated plates with initial deflections under uniaxial compression that are simply supported along four edges are determined using the second variation of total potential energy. The necessity of secondary buckling is proven analytically, and the effects of various factors, such as initial deflection, lamination constitution, and number of layers, are elucidated.
