The Effect of Boundary Conditions on the Response of Laminated Composites

The effect of boundary conditions on the bending, vibrations, and buckling of unsymmetrically laminated rectangular plates is in vestigated. Five sets of boundary conditions corresponding to various clamped and simply-supported edges are treated. The effect of in- plane boundary conditions is shown to be a function of fiber orienta tion within the laminate. Numerical results also show that the effects of bending-extensional coupling can be severe for all the boundary conditions considered. The applicability of the reduced-bending- stiffness approximation is also explored.