The purpose of this work is to study the buckling loads, delamination growt
h loads, and failures of delaminated inter-ply hybrid composite plates unde
r compression. Non-linear buckling and post-buckling analyses are conducted
to predict the delamination buckling load and delamination growth load. In
order to predict the delamination growth load, the total strain-energy rel
ease rate criterion, criterion of strain-energy release rate component, and
interlaminar-stress criterion are used. Experimental results are also prov
ided to compare with the prediction. The results indicate that non-linear b
uckling analysis has values very close to the buckling loads from the exper
iments and the agreement with the delamination growth loads is reasonable.
For global buckling mode, the buckling loads are suggested to represent the
failure loads of delaminated composites. For mixed and local buckling mode
s, the failure of the delaminated composite is attributed to the growth of
delamination. An increase in the number of glass-fiber layers within an int
erply hybrid composite results in a decrease in the buckling load and the d
elamination failure load. A local symmetry stacking sequence has a lower bu
ckling load and delamination failure load than an approximately globally sy
mmetric stacking sequence. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv
ed.