Thermal buckling analysis of cross-ply laminated plates using a simplified HSDT

This work presents a simplified higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) for thermal buckling analysis of cross-ply laminated composite plates. Unlike the existing HSDT, the present one has a new displacement field which introduces undetermined integral terms and contains only four unknowns. Governing equations are derived from the principle of the minimum total potential energy. The validity of the proposed theory is evaluated by comparing the obtained results with their counterparts reported in literature. It can be concluded that the proposed HSDT is accurate and simple in solving the thermal buckling behavior of laminated composite plates.