Stability Analysis of Shear Deformable Trapezoidal Composite Plates

The stability characteristics of shear deformable trapezoidal composite plates are studied here. Thestrain smoothing technique is employed to approximate the membrane strains and curvatures of the edge-based smoothing cells. The transverse shear strains within the Reissner–Mindlin quadrilateral element are obtained using the edge-consistent interpolation approach. At the beginning, the performance of the present numerical technique is examined for the buckling analysis of trapezoidal panels under in-plane compressive or shear stresses. Thereafter, new results on the buckling and postbuckling behaviors of trapezoidal composite plates are presented, for which comparable numerical results are rare in the literature. Representative numerical results are presented to highlight the interaction between the higher pre-buckling stresses and increased stiffness near the shorter edge with fiber orientation and loading direction on the buckling resistance of trapezoidal panels.