Buckling of antisymmetric angle- and cross-ply rectangular plates under shear and compression

Abstract The paper deals with buckling of antisymmetric angle- and cross-ply, simply supported rectangular flat plates under shear and compressive loads. The Rayleigh-Ritz energy method is used to find the buckling load, by assuming a double series form of trial functions for the buckled displacement field. Both the symmetric and antisymmetric buckling modes are considered. The effect of the number of layers, the aspect ratio and the lamination angle on the buckling load is studied. Results are presented for plates subjected to (i) shear loads only and (ii) both shear and uniaxial compressive loads; for the latter case, the results are presented in the form of interaction curves.