Buckling behavior of long anisotropic plates subjected to fully restrained thermal expansion

An approach for synthesizing buckling results and behavior for thin balanced and unbalanced symmetric laminates that are subjected to uniform heating or cooling and fully restrained against thermal expansion or contrac- tion is presented. This approach uses a nondimensional analysis for infinitely long, flexurally anisotropic plates that are subjected to combined mechanical loads and is based on useful nondimensional parameters. In addition, stiffness-weighted laminate thermal-expansion parame- ters are derived that are used to determine critical temper- atures in terms of physically intuitive mechanical buckling coefficients, and the effects of membrane orthot- ropy and membrane anisotropy are included. Many re- sults are presented for some common laminates that are intended to facilitate a structural designer's transition to the use of the generic buckling design curves that are pre- sented in the paper. Several generic buckling design curves are presented that provide physical insight into the buckling response in addition to providing useful design data. Examples are presented that demonstrate the use of the generic design curves. The analysis approach and ge- netic results indicate the effects and characteristics of lam- inate thermal expansion, membrane orthotropy and anisotropy, and flexural orthotropy and anisotropy in a very general and unifying manner.