Nonlinear bending of shear deformable laminated plates under transverse and in-plane loads and resting on elastic foundations

A nonlinear bending analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear def ormable composite laminated plate subjected to combined uniform lateral pre ssure and compressive edge loads and resting on a two-parameter (Pasternak- type) elastic foundation. The formulations are based on Reddy's higher orde r shear deformation plate theory (HSDPT), including the plate-foundation in teraction. The analysis uses a perturbation technique to determine the load -deflection curves and load-bending moment curves. Numerical examples are p resented that relate to the performances of antisymmetric angle-ply and sym metric cross-ply laminated plates subjected to combined loading and resting on two-parameter elastic foundations from which results for Winkler elasti c foundations are obtained as a limiting case. The effects played by founda tion stiffness, plate aspect ratio, total number of plies, fiber orientatio n, transverse shear deformation and initial compressive load are studied. ( C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.