Thermomechanical buckling of laminated composite and sandwich plates using global-local higher order theory

In this paper, a global-local higher order theory has been used to study buckling response of the laminated composite and sandwich plates subjected to thermal/mechanical compressive loads. The present global-local theory satisfies the free surface conditions and the geometric and stress continuity conditions at interfaces, and the number of unknowns is independent of the layer numbers of the laminate. Based on this higher-order theory, a refined three-noded triangular element satisfying C-1 weak-continuity conditions has been also proposed. The present theory not only predicts accurately the buckling response of general laminated composite plates but also calculates the critical buckling loads of the soft-core sandwich plates. However, numerical results show that the global higher-order theories as well as first order theories encounter some difficulties and overestimate the critical buckling loads for the sandwich plates with a soft core. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.