LARGE DEFORMATION OF ANTISYMMETRIC ANGLE-PLY LAMINATES RESULTING FROM NONUNIFORM TEMPERATURE LOADINGS

Abstract

A recently proposed incremental-loading procedure [1] is used to obtain approximate solutions for the moderately large deflections of antisymmetric angle-ply plates under nonuniform temperature fields. A parabolic in-plane variation and a linearly varying transverse distribution of temperature are considered. The analysis predicts the existence of a bifurcation along the thermal load-deflection path for certain laminate configurations and loadings. Results based on the large-deflection theory are compared with exact solutions to the classical small-deformation formulation for various fiber-reinforced laminates.