Buckling analysis of composite cross-ply laminated plates under hygrothermal loads with delaminations using the finite strip method

In this paper the effect of hygrothermal conditions such as temperature and moisture on buckling of composite laminated plates is investigated. For this purpose, the effect of changing in material characteristics with changing in temperature and moisture on buckling capacity of plates with different end conditions and biaxial loading is evaluated. In addition, the effect of delamination of layers on buckling load of plate is studied in different situations. The finite strip method is used in present paper to calculate the critical load of plate considering first shear order deformation theory. In finite strip formulation for evaluating the displacement field of each strip, the trigonometric shape functions is used in longitudinal direction and the Hermitian and linear shape function is used for out of plate and in plane transverse direction, respectively. The place and dimension of delaminating layers is modeled by separating the adjacent elements and reconstructing the standard, geometric, force and mass matrices, so, the critical load of laminated plates is calculated in different situation. The results show that the amount of changing in critical load of laminated plate for different temperatures, moistures and delamination of layers.