EXPLOITING SYMMETRIES FOR EFFICIENT POST-BUCKLING ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE PLATES

Two aspects of the postbuckling analysis of composite plates are considered in this paper. The first pertains to identifying the different types of symmetry exhibited by the pre- and postbuckling responses of rectangular and skewed composite plates. A procedure is presented for exploiting these symmetries in finite-elemen t and finitedifference analyses. The procedure can be used with existing programs having multipoint constraint capability. The second aspect pertains to the postbuckling response of biaxially loaded composite plates. Numerical results from finite-element analysis are presented that show the range of parameters for which shear deformation and/or anisotropy are important in buckling and postbuckling analysis.