Vibration behaviors of thermally postbuckled anisotropic plates using first-order shear deformable plate theory

Abstract Vibration behaviors of thermally postbuckled anisotropic plates are investigated. The finite element method is used for the analysis of thermal postbuckling and natural vibration of thermally postbuckled plates. The finite element model is based on the first-order shear deformable plate theory (FSDT) and von Karman strain-displacement relation to account for large deflection. Critical buckling temperature and the corresponding mode shape are determined from Euler buckling problem. In order to solve the thermal-postbuckling problem, the initial nonlinear stiffness is determined from estimated deflection of scaled buckling mode shape. The converged deflection at any temperature change is obtained using the Newton-Raphson method. The vibration analysis of thermally postbuckled plates are performed using the tangent stiffness obtained from the converged deflection. The effect of fiber orientation angle and aspect ratio on postbuckling and vibration behaviors are studied for simply supported laminated plates subject to steady-state uniform temperature increase.